10 Microsoft Word Style Secrets

Previous 1 2 3 Page 3

8. Make a Table of Contents From Heading Styles

The heading styles that come with Word—namely, Heading1, Heading2, and Heading3—are useful not only for headings but also for speeding up the creation of a table of contents for a long document.

First select a piece of text to format as a heading. Click the Home tab, and open the Styles Gallery. Choose the Heading1 style for a first-level heading, or the Heading2 style for a second-level heading. You can also use shortcut keys for these styles: Press Ctrl-Alt-1 for Heading1 and Ctrl-Alt-2 for Heading2. Since these are paragraph styles, you simply need to place the cursor somewhere in the paragraph to apply them; you don't have to select the entire heading.

Once you have formatted your document headings accordingly, you're ready to create a table of contents. Click in the document where the table of contents should appear, select the References tab, choose Table of Contents > Insert Table of Contents, and click OK. Word will automatically create a table of contents using the headings formatted with the Heading1 style as the main entries, the headings formatted with Heading2 as subentries, and the text formatted with Heading3 as third-level entries.

9. Set Special Features for Code Text

If you create documents that include special text—computer code, for example—you might not want Word to check the spelling on that text. You can create a style that you can then apply to such text to prevent the spelling checker from scanning it. First, select some text that looks the way you want the code to be formatted. Click the Home tab, and on the Styles Gallery drop-down menu, choose Save Selection as a New Quick Style. Type a name for this style, such as ComputerCode, and click Modify. Next, click the Format button, select Language, enable the Do not check spelling or grammar checkbox, and click OK.

If you wish, select the New documents based on this template option to make this style available for all future documents you create with this template, and click OK.

10. View Styles in the Style Pane

If you’re interested in (or confused about) using styles in your document, and if you want to see where styles have been applied, check the Style pane. Click File > Options > Advanced, locate Display Options, set the 'Style area pane width in both Draft and Outline views' value to 1.5 inches, and click OK.

To see the Style pane, click the View tab and select either Draft or Outline. The Style pane will appear on the left side of the screen, listing the name of the style in use for each paragraph. You can easily adjust the width of the Style pane by dragging its divider. Since the Style pane appears only in Draft and Outline views, it will disappear if you switch back to Print Layout view.

Other stories you might like:

• Five Microsoft Word Nightmares—and How You Can Fix Them
• Work Faster in Microsoft Word: 10 Secrets
• Make Image Magic in Microsoft Office 2010: 10 Cool Tricks
• How to Create Smart Microsoft Word Templates
• 9 Microsoft Office Tips Everyone Should Know
• Quick Tips for Microsoft Word, Cool Windows Tools
• Microsoft Word Tip: Quickly Add Filler Text to Your Document