2 tips for formatting your documents

It seems a lot of you are looking for ways to create more polished documents. The 12 tips for creating effective documents article has gotten a lot of traffic and some good responses. It includes some great tips on how to make your documents look more professional. From this article, you asked a lot of questions about how to consistently format your documents. Here are two tips that might help answer those issues.

1. Use Styles: Taking advantage of styles in Microsoft Office Word is the quickest way to keep your formatting consistent. Styles are a collection of formatting instructions that you can use to consistently format paragraphs, headings, titles, and captions. Using styles, you can instantly change the formatting in your document in just a couple of clicks. For example, you can be certain that all your headings have the same amount of space before them, all your captions are the same, and everything is the proper font size.

   To get stared with using styles, in Word 2003, on the Format menu, click Styles and Formatting. The Styles and Formatting task pane includes dozens of style to choose from. You can use these, and even create your own. The links below will help you get going.

   • About formatting text using styles
   • Video: Format your document with styles
   • Create a new style

2. Use the Format Painter: The Format Painter, the icon on the Standard Toolbar in Word, is one of my favorite features. It's a great tool to use when you want consistent formatting but don't want to create a new style. You can copy any formatting you want to duplicate—such as fonts, shading, and borders—and duplicate them throughout your document. I use Format Painter all the time and it saves me a bunch of time when I’m working on a document.

   To use Format Painter, select the text you want to copy, click the Format Painter button, and select the word, phrase, or paragraph you want to apply formatting to. If you want to apply the same formatting to more than one item, select the formatting you want, double-click the Format Painter button, and then select the words, phrases, or paragraphs you want to apply formatting to. It’s that easy.

   • Learn more about using the Format Painter.

For more ways to format your document—including how to set page margins, create columns, insert a table of contents, and other tips—check out the Formatting Documents page on Office Online.

Jason Kozleski