{"id":828,"date":"2012-09-06T15:10:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T07:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vm-officeblogs.cloudapp.net\/2012\/09\/06\/changing-your-style-in-the-new-word\/"},"modified":"2022-06-28T10:25:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T17:25:29","slug":"changing-your-style-in-the-new-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2012\/09\/06\/changing-your-style-in-the-new-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing your style in the new Word"},"content":{"rendered":"
Today’s post comes from Caitlin Ashley-Rollman, the program manager who has brought a whole new style to Word.<\/em><\/p>\n For as much time as people spend writing documents in Word, we know that users also spend lots of time formatting their documents to get them to look exactly as they want.\u00a0 There are lots of reasons to spend time styling your document \u2013 you may be trying to follow a publishing requirement, to make your document stand out, or just make it easier to read. In Word 2013, we\u2019ve made it easier than ever for you to quickly change the look of your entire document until you have it just right.<\/p>\n While the styles gallery has been available on the Word home tab since Word 2007, some people just assume styles are meant for people who want big blue text.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As it turns out, that\u2019s not true. I\u2019m here to tell you that Styles are handy, and if you use them to format your text as you write your document, you\u2019ll be able to take full advantage of the improvements in Word 2013 that we\u2019ve outlined below.<\/p>\n In the past, document level formatting features in Word were scattered in the UI \u2013 from the Change Styles menu on the Home tab to the Themes gallery on the Page Layout tab, our first task in Word 2013 was to bring commands together into a unified Design tab \u2013 your first stop for adjusting the look of your whole document<\/strong>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On this tab are all the features that change the look of your entire document (without you needing to select it). It\u2019s perfect for those times when you realize you\u2019ve written your entire document in Calibri but you really want it in Garamond, or for those of you who\u2019d prefer to have no spacing between lines or paragraphs of text. You can even change all the colors in your document at once.<\/p>\n Use the tab before you create your document if you want to write it in your final font & color combination, or use it after you\u2019re done to watch your document transform before your eyes.<\/p>\n One of my favorite new design features is the visual gallery for Word\u2019s Style Sets. (For those of you who are new to Style Sets, I\u2019ll explain them in more detail further down.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our goal here was to give you a sense for each choice by showing you a pictures of the Title, Heading 1 and some body text. By making them a large gallery, you can quickly experiment with them to find which one you want \u2013 in just one click you can go from a casual multicolored document to a professional looking black and white document with numbered headings.\u00a0 As a bonus, you can hover over the ones you\u2019re curious about to see how they\u2019ll change your document before you apply the formatting.<\/p>\n Once we had created the Design tab and style sets gallery, we decided to refresh the sets themselves to ensure the various options provided in Word 2013 be both modern and varied. To do this, we worked to come up with a group of designs that are perfect for common scenarios (essays, lab reports, books, legal documents, etc.). We focused on designs that were clean and simple with a few bits of flair. We wanted enough variety so you could find something that fit whatever document you were creating, but not so much variety that you\u2019d never even consider half of them.\u00a0 And don\u2019t worry \u2013 if you love the default look in previous versions of Word, those are still there too.<\/p>\n We know there will be times when none of the default style sets are quite right. Perhaps you\u2019ll want the headings a little smaller or you need them centered.<\/p>\n For example, if you want to make your own Style Set where Heading 1 is centered, you can apply Heading 1 to some text, center it, then right-click on Heading 1 and choose \u201cUpdate Heading 1 to match selection.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once you have the look you want, you can return to the Design tab and open the Style Sets gallery to find the \u201cSave as new style set button.\u201d This will let you save your custom design for future documents.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While these features aren\u2019t new to Office 2013, we are making them more visible, so it seems like a good time to explain how each of the buttons in the Document Formatting chunk will affect your document.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Themes button is a big switch that changes Colors, Fonts and Effects at once.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This makes it easy to change many attributes at the same time or to match your Word document to your PowerPoint deck. Keep reading to learn how each of these options changes your document.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Similar to Themes, Style Sets act as a big switch and have a large effect on the look of your document. The way I like to think of them is that they change the Font & Paragraph properties of the text in your document. Essentially, anything in these sections:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That said, we like to preserve the benefit of the Theme buttons described above, so we generally don\u2019t change the font in Style Sets and when we change the color, we stay within the Theme Colors section of the color palette. For example, in this document I switched to a Style Set with a large red title and a line under Heading 1 to create a completely different look:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Theme colors (also described as your color scheme) set the colors used in your document. A few places where you\u2019ll notice this change are:<\/p>\n For example, if you really like Red, you may choose to change your color scheme from Office to the \u201cRed\u201d scheme:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n which changes your document like this:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Theme fonts (similarly, sometimes described as your font scheme) set the font used by all the text in your document. It will change any text that is formatted using the fonts that have \u201c(Heading)\u201d or \u201c(Body)\u201d next to their name:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While you can use the font dropdown on the Home Tab to achieve the same result, here are a few good reasons to change your font using the Theme Fonts gallery:<\/p>\n For example, if you really want a serif font with a san-serif heading, you may choose to change the Theme Font from Office to Century Gothic \u2013 Palatino Linotype,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n which changes your document like this:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Paragraph Spacing gallery is perfect for changing the spacing between lines of text or paragraphs. It will update the spacing in your entire document (unless you have applied direct formatting using the Paragraph settings on the Home tab). For example, if you want to remove all the spacing that Word adds by default, you can do that by selecting the \u201cNo Spacing\u201d option.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Theme Effects change the look of Shapes, Charts and SmartArt in your document by adding shadows, outlines, gradients and other interesting visual effects. The amount that they change will depend on the styles of the object and the Theme Effect applied. Some are more subtle then others.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Last but not least, the Set as Default button is there so you can make these settings your default settings for all new blank documents. It will save your current: If you want to make sure you don\u2019t accidentally save the wrong settings, I recommend you start with a blank document and only change the settings you care about before saving them as your default.<\/p>\n In short, you can give your document an entirely new personality.\u00a0 Just make sure to format with Styles as you write then play with the options on the Design Tab until your document shines. <\/p>\n What\u2019s yours?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Design Tab feature crew is so excited to bring you an easier way to make your documents look great!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are lots of reasons to spend time styling your document – you may be trying to follow a publishing requirement, to make your document stand out, or just make it easier to read. In Word 2013, we’ve made it easier than ever for you to quickly change the look of your entire document until you have it just right. While the styles gallery has been available on the Word home tab since Word 2007, some people just assume styles are meant for people who want big blue text. As it turns out, that’s not true. I’m here to tell you that Styles are handy, and if you use them to format your text as your write your document, you’ll be able to take full advantage of the improvements in Word 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"content-type":[4034,4035],"product":[4036,4075],"audience":[4081,4101,4102],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","content-type-news","content-type-tips-and-guides","product-microsoft-365","product-word","audience-enterprise","audience-personal-and-family","audience-small-business"],"yoast_head":"\nUsing\u00a0styles<\/h3>\n
The new design tab<\/h3>\n
Style Sets gallery<\/h3>\n
New Style Sets<\/h3>\n
Getting it “Just right”<\/h3>\n
What do these settings actually do?<\/h3>\n
Themes<\/h4>\n
Style Sets<\/h4>\n
Theme colors<\/h4>\n
\n
\n<\/li>\nTheme fonts<\/h4>\n
\n
\n<\/li>\nParagraph spacing<\/h4>\n
Theme effects<\/h4>\n
Set as default<\/h4>\n
\nTheme<\/p>\n\n
Summary<\/h3>\n
\nThis is my before and after comparison:<\/p>\n