Styles Created When Formatting Text

by Deborah Horn
(Hartford, WI)

I use styles almost exclusively. However, how can I prevent Word 2007 from creating a new style when I select and modify several words within a styled paragraph?

Example: I apply a paragraph style to a paragraph, then type the text. When I select two or three words within that paragraph and apply bold or italics to them, a new style is created with the original style name + bold, or + italics. I don't want this to happen. Is there a setting I can change?

ANSWER:

It is important to understand the different types of formatting styles: paragraph, font, and both (what I call a combo style).

Determining Style Types

Let's look at the Styles window so you can see how to tell the style types apart.

To open the Styles window, follow these steps:

On the Home tab, find the Styles group.
Click the launcher to launch the Styles window, or
press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S.

Now scroll through the list of styles and pay attention to the symbols to the right of each style name. The figure below shows the three types of styles you can select when formatting your document.

Word 2007 Style Pane shows three types of styles

Hover over the Intense Quote style. A popup lists the formatting applied to the style. Notice that font and paragraph styles are listed because this is a combo style.

Do the same with the Book Title style. Only font styles are listed because this is a font style only.

Preventing Word from Creating Styles

In the scenario you describe, you apply a paragraph style to a block of text. Then when you highlight text and click one of the the formatting tools on the ribbon or mini-toolbar, Word is automatically creating a new combo style.

If you are formatting long documents this way, you can end up with hundreds of crazy styles!

You can prevent this problem by creating your own font styles for bold and italics, then applying the style to highlighted text instead of using the formatting toolbar.

As a matter of fact, if you are using the default template in Word 2007, built in styles for Strong and Emphasis are already created for you!

It is easy to format text using styles by following these steps:

Launch the Styles window.
Highlight the text you want to format.
In the Styles window, click the desired font style, such as Strong or Emphasis.

If you use several different paragraph styles, you may need to create a Strong and Emphasis style for each one.

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