How to Create New Styles in Microsoft Word

You can easily create new styles for your documents in Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000 (for PC) and Word 98 (for Macintosh) to give your documents distinctive looks and make them easier to read. Using styles makes it much easier to format your document consistently, especially for long documents. Word refers to styles you create as "user-defined styles."

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Microsoft Word

1. Format a paragraph with all the characteristics of your new style: font, font size, font attributes (bold, italic, and so on), margin settings, alignment (center, right, justified, and so on), tab settings, line spacing, and anything else you can think of.

2. Place the cursor within your formatted paragraph.

3. Open the Format menu and choose Style.

4. Click New.

5. Type a name for your style in the Name box (try to be specific: "Level 1 Heading" is a good style name, for example).

6. If you like, make a selection from the "Style for following paragraph" menu to select the style that is automatically applied to the paragraph following this style. (For example, you will most likely want a body text style to follow a heading, rather than another heading style.)

7. Click OK, then click Apply.

Tips & Warnings

• After you finish creating styles for your document, refer to "How to Apply Styles in Microsoft Word" to learn how to apply your new user-defined styles to text in your document.