Format a document by applying styles

Activity 1: Format a document by applying styles

1. This module requires the following document :"Wresatechnology". It may be downloaded here Wresatechnolgy.doc (Right click and choose "Save Target As..." . Save to your My Documents folder.) For a demo on downloading a file from this site see Module 3: Downloading Practice Files.

2. Open the document "Wresatechnology." Save a copy of this file as "Formatting Practice".

3. Select the first line "Western Region Education Service Alliance (WRESA) ".

4. Click on the down arrow in the "Style" window on the Formatting toolbar and click on "Heading 1".

5. Select the subtitles (Mission, History and Structure ,WRESA Instructional Technology Services) and apply "Heading 2" style.

What is a style?

A style is a set of formatting characteristics that you can apply to text in your document to quickly change its appearance. When you apply a style, you apply a whole group of formats in one simple task. For example, you may want to format the title of a report to make it stand out. Instead of taking three separate steps to format your title as 16 pt, Arial, and center-aligned, you can achieve the same result in one step by applying the Title style.

Manually format a paragraph 

Activity 2: Manually format a paragraph

1. Select the first paragraph.

2. From the Format menu, choose Paragraph

3. In the resulting dialogue box, on the Indents and Spacing tab, go to the Spacing section and choose Double. Then click OK.

4. Use the Format Painter from the Formatting toolbar to apply the same formatting to the remaining paragraphs.

To copy character and paragraph formats

1. Do one of the following:

To copy paragraph formatting, select the paragraph — including the paragraph mark — that has the formatting you want to copy.

To copy character formatting, select the text that has the formatting you want to copy.

2. On the Standard toolbar, click Format Painter , and then select the paragraph or text you want to apply the formatting to.

Tip   To copy the selected formatting to several locations, double-click Format Painter. Click the button again when you're finished, or press ESC.

Apply and format bullets and numbers

Activity 3: Apply and format bullets and numbers

1. Select the first list of courses at the end of the document.

2. Click on the Bullets button on the Formatting toolbar. Click on the button again to remove the bullets.

3. With the list still selected, click on the Numbering button.

4. To change the style of numbers used, from the Format menu, choose Bullets and Numbering

5. Click once on the Increase Indent button on the Formatting toolbar.

Format a document by using  AutoFormat

Activity 4: Format a document by using  AutoFormat

1. Select the entire document (Ctrl + A)

2. From the Format menu choose AutoFormat.

3. In the resulting pop-up menu click OK. Review your document and the click the Undo button.

4. Select the entire document (Ctrl + A)

5. From the Format menu choose Theme. At the bottom of the Theme dialogue box click on Style Gallery.

6. Scroll down the list of available Themes and select Elegant Report and click OK.

7. Save your document and close Word.

About themes

A theme is a set of unified design elements and color schemes for background images, bullets, fonts, horizontal lines, and other document elements. A theme helps you easily create professional and well-designed documents for viewing in Word, in e-mail, or on the Web.

Unlike a template, a theme does not provide AutoText entries, custom toolbars, macros, menu settings, or shortcut keys. A theme provides a look for your document by using color, fonts, and graphics.

When you apply a theme to a document, Word customizes the following elements for that document: background color or graphic, body and heading styles, bullets, horizontal lines, hyperlink colors, and table border color.

How does AutoFormat work?

By using AutoFormat, you can quickly apply formatting such as headings, bulleted and numbered lists, borders, numbers, symbols, and fractions to your text. Microsoft Word can also:

• Automatically format Internet, network, and e-mail addresses as hyperlinks.
• Apply bold or italic character formatting to text surrounded by asterisks (*) or underscores (_).
• Replace two hyphens (--) with an em dash (—).

You can automatically format a document either as you type or after you've written it. Word analyzes each paragraph to see how it's used in the document — for example, as a heading or as an item in a numbered list — and then applies a style that's appropriate for that item.

You have now completed this module. Take a few minutes to review and practice what you have learned. If you are through for this session, close all programs, being sure to save any work. You may now begin the next module by clicking on the Back to Index link on this page and then clicking on the next module on the homepage of this course.