Shortcuts for Basic Style Formatting

Summary: Want to get your text away from the explicit formatting you applied, back to the underlying formatting? Here's a couple of handy shortcuts you can use in that regard. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

All too often people learning to use styles forget themselves and start applying explicit formatting over the top of style-formatted text. If you have done this or inherited someone else's document of mixed parentage, getting the formatting back to pure styles can be slow work unless you know some shortcuts. The ones presented in this tip work in all versions of Word.

First, you can select the text and use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Z to remove all explicit character formatting. The result will be pure styles, without any explicit character formatting. (Pressing Ctrl+Shift+Z initiates the ResetChar command within Word; it is the same as pressing Ctrl+Spacebar.)

You can also use Ctrl+Q to remove any explicit paragraph formatting and return a paragraph to its style-defined defaults. For instance, Ctrl+Q will remove any explicit indents, tabs, and line spacing.

Finally, if you want to quickly apply the Normal style to a selection of text, you can press Ctrl+Shift+N.

Tip #861 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Shortcuts for Basic Style Formatting