Styles

[MrDoc]

Hi,

I read in some articles about Word that one should never press ENTER more
than once after a paragraph, and use space after when defining styles
instead.
Assuming I need about ten lines between a body text paragraph and the next
(also body text) paragraph, how can I modify the body text style to achieve
whast I need?

And what will be affected by this modification: the paragraph, the style in
the document I'm working on, or the body text style, appliable to any
document?

Would you advise me to create a new style to use when I need more than the
usual white space between paragraphs? And yet another style to use when I
need more than the usual lines of white space between, say, a heading and
the next body text paragraph?

If so, how can I save the newly created styles?

Thank you for any help.
Mario Domingos

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can add extra Space Before/After to a specific paragraph without
affecting the style either in the document (provided "Automatically update"
is not enabled) or in the template. But what I often do when I need to
insert a big chunk of space is use a single-cell borderless table with the
row height set to Exactly the needed amount.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[MrDoc]

Hi Suzanne,
Thank you for your suggestion, it seems very good to me.
What must I do if I want a new style to be saved for later use in any
document, but without enabling "Automatically Update", as I understood
enabling it is not advisable at all?
Best Regards,
Mario Domingos

 

[Mark Tangard]

MrDoc,

Automatically update has nothing to do with keeping the style
available. Once you create a style in a document, it's there
(in that file) unless you delete it. Automatically update
refers to the barely-useful-and-often-aggravating "feature"
that notices when you apply manual formatting to a paragraph
and immediately changes the style in which that paragraph is
formatted to include the formatting you apply. (For example,
if you define a style called MyStyle, include "Automatically
Update" in its definition, and use it to format a few dozen
paragraphs in a document, then you manually center one of
those paragraphs, ALL of the other paragraphs formatted in
that style will become centered, without asking you (or even
telling you). Sound like fun?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Mark has answered the question you appear to be asking. To delve a little
further into a follow-up on your previous question, if you change a
paragraph and want the change to be made to the style, you can "update by
example." To do that, you reselect the style in the Styles list, and Word
will ask you if you want to change the formatting of the style to match the
current paragraph or reapply the style. In Word 2002, however, this won't
happen unless you check the "Prompt to update style" box on the Edit tab of
Tools | Options.

So, reviewing the possibilities:

1. You can use existing styles as is.

2. You can make changes to the formatting of specific paragraphs without
affecting the style.

3. You can also change the style, either directly (through Format | Style |
Modify) or by changing the paragraph and updating the style.

4. You can also create new styles. You can either apply different formatting
to a paragraph and go to Format | Style | New and give it a name, or you can
create the formatting in the New Style dialog. The former is easier. Or you
can create the new style, then tinker with the formatting and update the
style (if you're going to do this, "Automatically update" is actually rather
helpful).

5. If you want to save any new or modified styles to the template, check the
"Add to template" box in the New/Modify Style dialog.

For more on this subject, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/ModifyAStyle.html

BTW, it's not clear whether by "in any document" you mean "in a given
document" or "in all new documents based on a given template." Obviously,
the way you modify and save styles will depend on which you want to do:
change/create a style for the current document or save it to the template so
that it will be available for new documents based on that template.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[MrDoc]

Suzanne and Mark,

Thank you very much, your help was exactly what I needed.
Best Regards,
Mario Domingos