QI’m working in a document with dozens of headings and subheadings. I want to check which section I’m working in without having to scroll back up to find the heading. Is that possible?
Continue reading Q&A: How can I tell what section of a document I’m in?Tag Archives: styles
Q&A: Detect Changes to Styles
QI think the author made subtle changes to the Styles when they were revising. Things like the space above the Style and its exact colour. How can check?!
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Create a Table of Contents in Word Automatically
Word will automatically populate a table of contents for any file. Here’s the easiest method:
Continue reading Create a Table of Contents in Word Automatically
Paragraph spacing in Word
There’s no need to hit return multiple times to make a manuscript look nice. In fact the next person in the production line will probably be removing those hard returns as a first step toward producing the final product.
Continue reading Paragraph spacing in Word
Q&A: How can I paste without formatting?
QI copied text with formatting I don’t want to keep. How can I paste it without that formatting?
AEasy! There’s both a built-in keyboard shortcut and a button:
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Shrink Files by Deleting Unused Styles
Word files can get bloated, taking up far more MB than they should. If you’re dealing with a book-length manuscript full of tracked changes and comments, that bloat can bog down the computer and lead to failures, glitches, and basic Office malfeasance.
Continue reading Shrink Files by Deleting Unused StylesTurbo Boost Manuscript Styling with This Simple Macro for MS Word
Styles have many wonderful uses, so it behoves any editorial process to use them. We’ve looked at several ways to apply styles, now we’ll look at a macro that will apply several styles in one click!
Continue reading Turbo Boost Manuscript Styling with This Simple Macro for MS WordQuick Tricks for Applying Styles to Word Documents
Styles are applied to many good ends, in Word: production workflow, ebook coding, and making restructuring easy, to name a few. There are several easy ways to apply styles, too!
- Styles area of the Home ribbon
- Styles panel
- Format painter
- Keyboard shortcut
Try This! Restructure Using Styles
In this exercise, you’ll practice applying Styles and using the Outline View.
Heading levels must be indicated in the manuscript in some way. Heads can’t simply be formatted as body text—even boldfacing will help the designer as much as the editor. And the reader absolutely needs them.
Continue reading Try This! Restructure Using StylesWorking with Tables: Aligning Numbers
Left and right alignment aren’t going to cut it when aligning numbers in tables. Best practice to align numbers on the decimal. Aesthetics dictate that the numbers also be centred. Tab settings make this process elegant, and the ruler makes it intuitive. See it in action in the demo video at the end, and read the steps below.
- Select the cells whose contents you want to align by clicking and dragging across them.
- On the ruler (revealed via the View ribbon), click the left corner edge several times to change the tab mark selection to “decimal align” (the up arrow on a point, shown at right).
- Click on the ruler to place the tab.
- Click on the tab mark and drag it along the ruler to adjust its placement.
Word is not a layout tool, but sometimes, it is what you have to use. Compositors also appreciate having table formatting close to ideal, so editors end up tweaking alignment frequently.
Check out all the other posts in this series about Working with Tables and download your free multimedia ebook of them all!
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