Word Smart - Part 2: Saving your custom styles in the Normal template

When you create a new document in Microsoft Word, it's based on the Normal template. Word provides a number of ready-made styles in this Normal template, which define attributes for body text, headings and many other types of paragraph. The advantages of using Word's style sheet include consistency, the ability to use the Outline view (which shows the structure of your document, with nested headings) and the ability to generate a table of contents automatically.

But Word's default settings aren't exactly at the cutting edge of elegant typography. With a only a little effort the Normal template can be programmed with your own personal variations - rather than Microsoft's boring, ugly choices.

We looked at how to apply and modify styles in part 1 of Word Smart. Now we'll see how you can make these changed styles available whenever you create a new document. Note that these screen shots are taken from Word 2003, but the procedure is similar for other versions of Word.

In the File menu, click Open. In the Open dialog box, click the arrow next to the Files of type box, and click Document Templates. If the Normal.dot template is not immediately visible, you'll need to navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. Double-click the Normal.dot file to open it. (To be certain that you're working in the default template, check that Normal.dot appears in the Word title bar.)

Click on the Format menu and select Styles and Formatting from the drop-down menu. (Note that the procedure for accessing the Modify Styles dialog box may differ in other versions of Word.)

Modifying Word's predefined styles

The Styles and Formatting Task Pane will now appear at the right of your screen. Right-click on the style you want to change (eg Normal) and select Modify from the drop-down menu. In the Modify Style dialog which appears, you can decide which element of the style (eg font, paragraph, numbering) you want to change. (Note that you can only modify one style element at a time.)

You might, for example, decide to change the Normal font from the default Times New Roman to Verdana because of this font's excellent on-screen readability. Select Font from the Format button drop-down menu and the Font dialog box will appear, where you can change any of the Font parameters. Once you have made all your font changes, click OK to return to the Modify Style dialog box, where you can either select another style element to change or click OK if you have completed all your changes for that particular style.

Let's assume that you want to change the default paragraph settings for the Normal style, so select Paragraph from the Format button drop-down menu. Note that, while the Font dialog box has three tabs (the second and third of which are rarely used in simple business documents) the Paragraph dialog box has two - and you may want to make changes in both of these.

In the Indents and Spacing tab, you can define space before or after a paragraph, the alignment, indents, line spacing (or leading in typesetter-speak). Defining a space before or after a Normal paragraph means that you don't have to use a double carriage return to put a space between paragraphs.

The Line and Page Breaks tab is of particular interest when you're defining heading styles, so let's assume that you've now moved on to change the default settings for the Heading 2 style. Remember that the advantage of modifying Word's own styles - rather than creating your own and calling them, say, Heading A, Heading B etc - is that this allows you to use features such as outlining (seeing the document's entire structure on one page) and automatic tables of contents.

Click the Line and Page Breaks tab in the Paragraph dialog box and make sure that, for any heading style, the Keep with next box is checked. For your top level heading (Heading 1), you may also want to check the Page break before box.

Creating a new style in the Normal template

You can create a new style either by example or by starting from scratch. To create by example, format a paragraph with the characteristics you require, click on New Style in the Styles and Formatting Task Pane, type in a name for the style and click OK.

To create a style from scratch, click the New Style button. Then format all the required characteristics, give the style a name and click OK.

The example dialog boxes left and below show typical settings you might use to create a custom bullet list style.

The advantage of doing this - rather than using Word's bullet toolbar button - is that you can change all your bullets in a document (or all the bullets with that style) by simply redefining the style.

Saving and closing the Normal template

When you have finished making all your style changes, click Save (or type Ctrl+S). Any new blank document that you create will now have all your modified and new styles embedded in it.

Microsoft never seems too keen on promoting a style-based approach - perhaps because it doesn't really fit with its 'nanny knows best' philosophy. You may find that some of Word's default program settings will try to override the styles that you select -especially if they are bulleted or numbered styles. In the next edition of Word Power, I'll explain why turning off certain Auto correct defaults can put you back in control, and show you how to do this.