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: Defining Styles.

Defining Styles

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 27, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


2

Styles are key to the underlying power of Word. They allow you to consistently define how your text should look throughout a document or a series of documents. There are a number of ways in which you can define styles, but the way you use will depend most heavily on the version of Word you are using. To define a style using Word 97 and Word 2000, simply follow these steps:

  1. Choose Style from the Format menu. Word displays the Style dialog box.
  2. If desired, you can choose one of the pre-defined styles that appear at the left side of the Style dialog box. In many cases, these can save you a great deal of work for common treatments of text.
  3. If you picked a pre-defined style, click on Modify. If you want to define a style from scratch, click on New. Either way, you see essentially the same dialog box that allows you to set the attributes of the style.
  4. If you are defining a new style, make sure you specify the name and type of style you are creating. You can also indicate if this new style is based on (derived from) an existing style.
  5. Click on the Format button to make changes to the actual formatting attributes assigned to the style. The types of formatting available depend on whether you are working with a paragraph or character style.
  6. When you are done setting the formatting attributes, click on OK to close the dialog box. Word again displays the Style dialog box and your style is listed in the available styles list.
  7. Click on Close to dismiss the Style dialog box.

Both Word 2002 and Word 2003 use a task pane in their user interface, which means that there are some differences in how you define styles:

  1. Choose Styles and Formatting from the Format menu. Word displays the Styles and Formatting task pane.
  2. If desired, you can choose one of the pre-defined styles that appear in the list of available styles. In many cases, these can save you a great deal of work for common treatments of text.
  3. If you picked a pre-defined style, move the mouse pointer over the top of the style name, click on the down-arrow to the right of the style name, and then click on Modify. If you want to define a style from scratch, click on New Style. Either way, you see essentially the same dialog box that allows you to set the attributes of the style. (See Figure 1.)
  4. Figure 1. The New Style dialog box.

  5. If you are defining a new style, make sure you specify the name and type of style you are creating. You can also indicate if this new style is based on (derived from) an existing style.
  6. Click on the Format button to make changes to the actual formatting attributes assigned to the style. The types of formatting available depend on whether you are working with a paragraph or character style.
  7. When you are done setting the formatting attributes, click on OK to close the dialog box. Word updates the style list in the Styles and Formatting task pane, if necessary.
  8. Close the Styles and Formatting task pane, if desired.

Once the style is defined (or an existing style modified), you can use your style anywhere you like within your 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 (591) 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: Defining 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Pulling Formulas from a Worksheet

The formulas in your worksheet can be displayed (instead of formula results) by a simple configuration change. You can ...

Discover More

Forcing a Final Blank Page

When printing or combining documents, you may need to worry about how many pages are in the documents. This tip provides ...

Discover More

Displaying Highlights for Commented Text

Word provides quite a bit of flexibility in what markup is displayed on-screen and how that markup appears. This tip ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Searching for Styles

If you use styles to format your text, you can later search for words and phrases that are formatted using various ...

Discover More

Cut and Paste Formatting

What happens when you copy information from one document and paste it into another? It is possible for what you paste to ...

Discover More

Getting Rid of Modify Style Message

When you apply styles to a paragraph, you may periodically see a message asking if you want to reapply the style or ...

Discover More
Subscribe

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.

What is 7 - 7?

2016-11-02 09:38:09

kasi

did not help


2015-10-26 14:23:47

daijon

tht do not help


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.

Videos
Subscribe

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

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.