Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 25, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
When creating formatting styles in Word, you can base one style on another style. This concept has a great application: you can develop style families. To implement this, you should develop a few base styles. For instance, you may have a base style for regular text, one for numbered lists, and one for headings. (In fact, you can use Word's predefined styles for these base styles—except for the Normal style.) Once the base styles are defined, you can base other styles on the base styles. That way, if you need to make a change that affects an entire style family, you can change the base style and all the styles based upon it will change as well.
When you name your styles (both the base styles and all the other styles based upon them) you may want to name the styles so the families are grouped together. One way of doing this is to start each style belonging to the same family with the same character or two. For example, each style in your regular text family could start with the characters RT, each of them in your headings family could start with HD, and so on. In this way, all of the related styles will be displayed together in any style list. You may need to rename the styles you have defined in order to implement this tip.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1033) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.
Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!
Styles are a fantastic tool for formatting documents. As you work with documents created by others, you may want to get ...
Discover MoreNeed to get rid of direct, explicit formatting applied to a document? Here's an easy way to do it using familiar Word tools.
Discover MoreUsing the Styles and Formatting task pane, Word allows you to select all instances of a given style in your document. ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
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.
Visit the WordTips channel on YouTube
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments