Document Formatting
with Microsoft Word

With the newest version of Microsoft Word, document formatting is easier than ever!

With just a few clicks, you can create professional looking business documents such as business letters, reports, forms, and more.

There are different document formatting options available to help you create your own masterpiece with Word 2007:

• Themes
• Formatting
• Styles

I will be adding new tips and tutorials to this section over the coming months. Bookmark this page (Ctrl + D) so you can refer back to it, or subscribe to my blog to be updated when new pages are added.

I receive more questions about formatting documents with Word 2007 than about any other subject! See the Formatting Documents Q&A to read what others are asking...you may have the same question.

I hope you enjoy discovering new formatting tips and tricks! As usual, I include shortcuts and troubleshooting tips whenever possible to help you work faster and smarter with Microsoft Word 2007.

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Themes

Themes are new to Word 2007. A theme is a set of fonts, colors, and effects for an individual Word document. Themes can save you hours of work formatting and reformatting documents. There are 20 built-in themes, but you can browse for more themes from Microsoft Office Online.

• Theme fonts: each theme contains two default fonts, one for headings and one for the body of the document. If the text is marked as Body or Heading, you can easily change the fonts throughout the entire document by changing the theme font.
• Theme colors: Word 2007 includes 20 pre-made theme color sets, plus Grayscale. Themes control the colors for fonts, backgrounds, hyperlinks, charts, and SmartArt. You can also create your own theme color sets.
• Theme effects: graphic objects such as charts and SmartArt are controlled by the theme effects settings. Changing the effect changes the appearance such as drop shadows, beveled edges, and textures.

To save time formatting, select a theme that contains the settings you use most often.

Changing the Word 2007 Theme

To select a new Word 2007 theme, follow these steps:

1. On the Page Layout tab, click Themes.
2. Hover over a theme name to see a quick preview of how the new theme will change your document.
3. Click the theme to apply it.

You can change the theme at any time, or override the theme settings using styles.

Working Faster with Themes

Another bonus with themes is that they are duplicated across the Microsoft Office 2007 suite. This is a great timesaver! With a few clicks, you can create matching documents. For instance, if you create a PowerPoint slide show using the Apex theme, you can create a matching handout in Microsoft Word by using the same theme.

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Formatting

Document formatting works the same in Microsoft Word 2007 as in previous versions. But because the menus are gone, many new users have difficulty finding the tools.

In these tips and tutorials, I'll tell you where to find your old favorites. You will find it is easy to copy, change, or remove formatting with Word 2007!

It is a good idea to pre-plan your document layout. For instance, think about these different formatting levels when planning your document:

• Document: type of document (is it a brochure, letter, report...?)
• Page: page size, margins, orientation, theme, headers, footers...
• Paragraph: paragraph and line spacing, formatting lists, indentation, tabs, page breaks, hyphenation, widow and orphan control...
• Font: size, font-face, color, styling (bold, italic, underline, shadows)...

As you can see, there are many layout design decisions to make before you even type the first word! Start with general document properties, then work toward more specific properties such as paragraph formatting and fonts.

You can save yourself a lot of headaches by planning ahead instead of typing first, then trying to make document formatting changes later on.

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Styles

If you don't know what Microsoft Word styles are or how to use them, you are missing out on one of the most powerful features of this software!

The main purpose of styles is to create consistent character and paragraph formatting throughout your document. Not only that, using styles allows you to make global document formatting changes with just a few clicks.

If you want to work faster and smarter, learning how to use styles will help you achieve your goal. Then once you discover how to use styles in Microsoft Word, you can transfer that knowledge to other Microsoft Office programs. Soon you will be creating documents just like a professional desktop publisher!

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