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: Quickly Copying Styles.

Quickly Copying Styles

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 16, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

You can quickly copy styles from one document to another by the following technique:

Open both documents and make them visible on the screen at the same time.
Select a paragraph containing the style you want to copy.
Copy the paragraph to the Clipboard.
Move the insertion point to the other document.
Paste the paragraph from the Clipboard into the document. The style is automatically copied to the style list.

You should note that this technique assumes the style is not already defined in both documents. If it is, it will not be copied into the second document, but the paragraph will assume the attributes of the style in the second document when it is pasted.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1066) 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: Quickly Copying 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...

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