Applying Styles in Word 2002 and Word 2003

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 20, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2002 and 2003

Styles will do you no good if you cannot apply them to your text. There are three ways you can apply styles. The first way to apply styles depends on your use of the toolbars. The Formatting toolbar includes the Style tool, which is a drop-down list that indicates the style of the current paragraph. You can change the style of the current paragraph (in the case of paragraph styles) or the characters you have selected (for character styles) by pulling down the list and selecting a different style.

The second method of applying styles uses the Styles and Formatting pane. You can follow these steps to apply a style:

Position the insertion point in the paragraph to which you want to apply a paragraph style, or select the text to which you want to apply a particular style.
Choose Styles and Formatting from the Tools menu. Word displays the Styles and Formatting pane at the right side of the program window.
In the Pick Formatting to Apply list, click once on the name of the style you want to apply.
Close the Styles and Formatting pane.

The final method assumes you have assigned your styles to specific shortcut keys. If you have, then you can position the insertion pointer in the paragraph to which you want to apply the style, and then use the shortcut key.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (954) applies to Microsoft Word 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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