Choosing an Equation Style

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 28, 2025)

In the Equation Editor you can define styles that indicate how you want certain characters to appear in the equation. You select the style to use for a particular equation element by the following:

Select the equation element or text whose style you wish to change.
Pull down the Style menu.
Select one of the defined styles.

There are six predefined styles for equation characters: Math, Text, Function, Variable, Greek, and Matrix-Vector. These are the styles you can choose from the Style menu. Two additional styles are also available but are used internally by the equation editor: Symbol and Number.

Notice that the Style menu also includes a Style called Other. This is not really a style; instead, it is a way to apply a particular font and font size to characters in your equation.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (922) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

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...

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