No. This is a long-standing flaw (in my opinion). The Formatting Palette
presents styles in alphabetical order but it has other flaws. Your best
bet is to use shortcuts if you can. For example, if the shortcut for
"Italic" is "i" then you can type command-shift-S, i, Return to set the
current selection to Italic style. Shortcuts are defined by putting a
comma followed by the shortcut at the end of the style's name. m.
Just adding to Matt's always excellent advice, Alan: for some styles
(typically ones that I haven't created and which therefore do not have a
shortcut suffix, and can't amend because I have to send the document back),
I open the window the Style window (Format menu -> Style -- I invoke that
with a keyboard shortcut), then key the first letter of the style I want,
then arrow-down to select the style I want, then press Return.
Listing of styles in this window is alphabetical.
This sounds time-consuming but in practice usually takes 2 seconds,
especially when applying a style whose position is known (e.g., I know that
"pullquote" style is accessible by keying "p" and arrowing down twice).
But when I am applying my own styles -- i.e. >95% of the time -- I use the
Command-Shift-s method. Few professional document developers use the menu or
Formatting palette.
I discuss this topic on page 90 of some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Bend/BendWord.htm).
Cheers,
Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 7 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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