How to correct and/or add styles to an existing document?

[Peter Sale]

I just discovered Styles today, and I am attempting to get up to speed by reading what Shauna Kelly has to say about them at http://tinyurl.com/ybqf .
I also have an existing document, a portion of which can be downloaded from http://petersale.com/word/, the file is 040724Styles01.doc, that was originally created without using any styles. I'm attempting to "re-format" it using Styles. I don't actually want to change the way it looks. I am quite satisfied with its appearance. I just want to make it look the way it looks via styles rather. This document upgrade is proving to be quite a challenge. For example, even though I did not knowingly use styles in the creation of this document, Format=>Styles and Formatting ... and Show: Formatting in use show a variety of "styles" with names like Style 9 pt Centered or After: 6 pt. I imagine this is the sort of thing you get if you manually format stuff without actually using styles? In any case, any pointers on how to "convert" this nice looking document into a document that remains "nice looking" but utilizes styles would be much appreciated?

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Peter

What you're seeing listed in the Styles and Formatting task pane are not, as
you suspected, styles. They're a description of a combination of style +
direct formatting that you've used in the document. For more info about
that, see

How the Styles and Formatting pane works in Word 2002 and 2003
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/sfpane/StylesAndFormattingPane.html

To re-format your document using styles, you basically have two choices. The
result will be the same: the choice depends on how you would prefer to work.
In both cases, it's a good idea to make a backup copy before you begin.

The "Brute Force" method is to print out your document, so you have a copy
of the formatting to which you can refer. If necessary, write on the paper
copy to indicate particular formatting (eg this was Arial 13pt with 4 points
space after the paragraph). Now, ctrl-a to select the whole document,
ctrl-Shift-N to put it all in normal style (or, apply whatever style you
intend to use for the body text, eg style Body Text), then ctrl-q and
ctr-spacebar to remove all direct formatting.

You'll now have a completely clean slate on which to work. Apply your styles
as required.

The "Top Down" method is to start by applying style Heading 1 to the major
headings, and modify Heading 1 to suit your needs. Then apply Heading 2 to
the sub-headings, and so on. If I'm doing this, I would probably work in
Outline View, so I can concentrate on one part of the document, at a time.

Don't forget that Word has built-in shortcuts for the main heading styles
(Alt-Ctrl-1, Alt-Ctrl-2 etc). And F4 will repeat the last command you used.
So if you just applied a style to a paragraph, you can apply the same style
to another paragraph by using F4.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word


I just discovered Styles today, and I am attempting to get up to speed by
reading what Shauna Kelly has to say about them at http://tinyurl.com/ybqf .
I also have an existing document, a portion of which can be downloaded from
http://petersale.com/word/, the file is 040724Styles01.doc, that was
originally created without using any styles. I'm attempting to "re-format"
it using Styles. I don't actually want to change the way it looks. I am
quite satisfied with its appearance. I just want to make it look the way it
looks via styles rather. This document upgrade is proving to be quite a
challenge. For example, even though I did not knowingly use styles in the
creation of this document, Format=>Styles and Formatting ... and Show:
Formatting in use show a variety of "styles" with names like Style 9 pt
Centered or After: 6 pt. I imagine this is the sort of thing you get if you
manually format stuff without actually using styles? In any case, any
pointers on how to "convert" this nice looking document into a document that
remains "nice looking" but utilizes styles would be much appreciated?

 

[Peter Sale]

Many thanks Shauna. I will give your suggestions a try.

--
Regards,

Peter Sale
Santa Monica, CA USA
To email me, just pull 'my-leg.'

 

[Peter Sale]

Hi Bill,
I will also give your suggestions a try.

--
Many Thanks,

Peter Sale
Santa Monica, CA USA
To email me, just pull 'my-leg.'

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Peter,

Whether Word treats manual formatting similar to styles depends on "Tools >
Options > Edit > Keep track of formatting".
It's probably checked on your machine, and that is the best setting if you
want to use styles in the future.
I'd also choose "Custom" at the bottom of the "Styles and formatting" pane,
and check everything in that dialog.

The goal is now to reduce the long list to a couple of properly defined
styles.
First, you can get rid of the styles you don't really use.

Using a macro is the simplest way to do that.
I pasted the one I use below.


You probably just want to keep about four or so paragraph styles, those
that are used a lot.
You can right-click > Modify on a style in the pane to give it a better
name (for example "Section title" instead of "Style 12 pt centered bold").
Most times, it's better to name styles according to their use (say "House
Rules paragraphs" or "Signatures") rather than according to the formatting.

Next, check whether you really want to keep the used paragraph styles
(those with the ¶ at the right).
Right-click on them, and you see how often they are used.
"Select all x instances" shows you where they are used.
For example, "Style 12 pt bold" and "Style 12 pt centered 1" are both only
used once.
They look about the same, so you can apply one of them to both paragraphs
and delete the other.
You can also get rid of some styles that are only used for empty
paragraphs.

You can keep for example one style for paragraphs with first line indents
and "space after 6 pt", one for those with no indent and 6 pt after,
another one for those with hanging indents and line spacing "at least 18
pt", etc.

Then you can check whether the paragraph styles are used consistently: You
can again select everything that is formatted in some style with
right-click on the style name > "Select all x instances". If not all
paragraphs that should look the same are formatted in the same paragraph
style, you can apply the proper style.

You can probably also safely remove the rest of manual paragraph formatting
with Ctrl+Q.
If the paragraph formatting doesn't look quite right after Ctrl+Q, you now
can apply the proper formatting through the style definition.

Most manual character formatting is ok (such as bold, italic, underlined).
Only if you have character formatting that's always applied to the whole
paragraph (like a certain font, or bold headings), it should be part of the
paragraph style's definition, and you can remove manual character
formatting with Ctrl+Spacebar.
Once you have defined a proper set of paragraph styles, you can usually
keep "Show: Custom > Other formatting > Font formatting" unchecked, since
you are only interested in paragraph styles.

Hope that helps you a bit,
Klaus


Sub DeleteUnusedStyles()
' stops and asks whether you want to keep/delete a style
' most times, you probably want to answer "yes" to keep
' styles that are in use, and selete those that aren't.
Dim myStyle As Style
For Each myStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles
If myStyle.InUse Then
Select Case myStyle
Case ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleDefaultParagraphFont)
Case ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal)
Case ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormalTable)
Case ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading1) To _
ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleHeading9)
Case Else
Selection.Collapse (wdCollapseStart)
With Selection.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Style = myStyle
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Execute FindText:="", Format:=True
If .Found = False Then
StatusBar = myStyle.NameLocal
If MsgBox("Delete?", vbYesNo, myStyle.NameLocal) = vbYes Then
myStyle.Delete
End If
Else
If MsgBox("Keep?", vbYesNo, myStyle.NameLocal) = vbNo Then
myStyle.Delete
End If
End If
End With
End Select
End If
Next myStyle
End Sub