Word has two ways of formatting text:
- Direct formatting; and
- Styles.
Direct formatting embeds the formatting alongside the text. Each paragraph of text holds its own formatting information. It is simple and, well, direct.
Styles separate formatting from the text. Styles group characteristics. Paragraphs are then assigned a style. , automatically apply the style’s characteristics. Updating the style updates the paragraphs with that style. Applying a style to a new paragraph applies the characteristics to that new paragraph.
Direct formatting is simple to understand and to use, however it falls down with longer, or more complicated documents. In particular:
- As each paragraph contains its own formatting, if there is need to change the formatting of a document, every paragraph must be changed separately.
- It is difficult to ensure consistency across a document. It is very difficult to ensure that a heading on the third page has the same formatting as a heading on the tenth page of a document.
Styles solve both of these problems. Changing a style’s formatting will apply that formatting to all paragraphs with that style. Similarly, if a paragraph on the third page is the same style as a paragraph on the tenth page, they will share their formatting.
For better and worse, Word allows direct formatting and styles to mix. A single paragraph can have a style as well as be directly formatted with the direct formatting overruling the style. This can be powerful, but it can make using styles confusing. By default, Word will apply direct formatting instead of changing a paragraph’s style. This can mean that a careless Word user can quickly sully the most beautifully styled documents with direct formatting without realising it.
For example, a document has two styles: a Heading style with Helvetica size 12; and a Body text style with Times, size 11. Taking a Body text paragraph, and changing the font to Helvetica, the size to 12, will not change the style of the paragraph to Heading, it will simply apply all that formatting as direct formatting to that paragraph.
What styles are not
It is also worth stressing what styles are not. Styles are not the blue headings in Word’s ribbon. The blue headings are examples of styles, but can give a false impression of how styles should be used. The power of styles is not to allow people to find the appearance of a style they like, but rather to create and modify styles as needed.
Styles are also not just how text looks, but also how it works. Styles affect many aspects of text function including spacing, how text flows from one page to another and the language of text.