Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Unwanted Styles.

Unwanted Styles

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 10, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Rhana asked for a way to remove unwanted styles from the Style drop-down list on the Formatting toolbar. There is no easy way to do this; in fact, some styles are included on the list by default. For instance, Normal and three Heading styles are always visible. If you have additional styles showing up which you know you don't use and should not be there, then the only successful way to remove the styles from the drop-down list is to effectively recreate the document. This is not quite as drastic as it sounds however; you can follow these general steps:

Save your document in RTF format, but append the .TXT extension. Then close the file.
Open the newly saved document file in a text editor (such as Notepad) so that you can see the RTF code. Here is a sample of the RTF code for a footer (note the definition of the style is contained between curly brackets):

{\s242\tqc\tx4320\tqr\tx8640 \fs20\lang1033 \sbasedon0\snext242 footer;}

Use the text editor's Find command to search for the unwanted style's name. Thus, if you wanted to get rid of Heading 5, you would search for "Heading 5".
Delete all information between the brackets, as well as the brackets themselves, for the unwanted style.
Save and close the file.
Open the file in Word. Allow Word to convert the RTF file into a Word document file.
Look in the Style drop-down list to verify that the unwanted styles are missing.
Save the file as a Word document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (100) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Unwanted Styles.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Using the Organizer to Manage AutoText

There are times you need to move your AutoText entries from one template or document to another. Use Organizer to do this ...

Discover More

Deleting Freezes Computer

Sometimes a strange object or text may appear in your document, as happened to Sharon. To complicate the situation, her ...

Discover More

Struggling with New Changes to Track Changes

In the latest versions of Microsoft 365, the company has introduced an entirely new way to deal with markup comments. ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! An easy-to-understand guide to the more advanced features available in the Microsoft 365 version of Word. Enhance the quality of your documents and boost productivity in any field with this in-depth resource. Complete your Word-related tasks more efficiently as you unlock lesser-known tools and learn to quickly access the features you need. Check out Microsoft 365 Word For Professionals For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Applying Styles in Word 2002 and Word 2003

How to apply styles to your document elements.

Discover More

Finding Unused Styles

Use this VBA macro to determine which styles are being used in the current Word document.

Discover More

How Word Applies Styles

Styles are a great boon for applying styles in a powerfully consistent manner. How Word applies styles, however, depends ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is five more than 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.