When you use styles in Microsoft Word, you can see the style of the currently selected paragraph in the Style dropdown list on the Formatting toolbar. To see what style is applied to a paragraph, you can click the paragraph and look at the list on the toolbar.
When you receive a document from someone else, whether it be from someone in your office or someone from a remote location, wouldn’t it be nice if you could instantly see what styles were used for each paragraph in the document? Well you can and I am going to tell you just how to accomplish that.
I have been told by folks who work on Help Desks, that this trick has helped them out many times when they were tasked with resolving a problematic document.
Follow the steps below:
- Open the document.
- Make sure your document is displayed in Normal view. The Style Area is not accessible in Print Layout view, but it is available in Outline view.
- Click on Tools | Options.
- Click the View tab.
- Under Outline and Normal Options, in the Style area width space, enter at least 0.5 inches or the equivalent thereof.
- Click the OK button.
You will now see the Style Area displayed on the left of your screen.
In the Style Area, to the left of the first line of each paragraph, the name of each style is displayed for you.
To change the size of the Style Area, follow the steps below:
- Click on Tools | Options.
- Click on View.
- Under Outline and Normal Options, in the Style area width, change the size.
You can also change the size of the Style Area by using your mouse to drag the vertical line between the Style Area and the body of your document.
If you find that you need to modify one of the styles, simple double-click it to open the Style dialog.