Let’s look into what they are, what they do, and how to use them.

Why Use Styles?

Any text that contains formatting that differs from the Normal style should have its own style name.

A laptop with Microsoft Word on the screen and some text styles in the background.

Lucas Gouveia / How-To Geek |Kamil Zajaczkowski/ Shutterstock

bring up the “View” tab on the ribbon, and click “Draft.”

You will then see the Style Area Pane on the left of your document.

This will launch the Apply Styles dialog box.

Microsoft Word’s Styles group.

When working with styles and paragraphs, it’s always advisable to display paragraph markers.

Click “Show/Hide” () in the Paragraph group of the Home tab to do this.

Clicking “All Styles” will bring up all the default options you might use.

The Word Options dialog box, with the Display section of the Advanced menu showing the Style Area Pane width changed to 5 cm.

Click “OK” when you’ve decided what you want to display.

Whichever method you use, you’ll then have the option to click “Modify.”

I also clicked the Paragraph dialog box launcher and changed the Space After to 24 pt.

The Apply Styles dialog box in Word.

Don’t worryas you’re applying formatting manually here, it won’t affect existing styles in your document.

You will then see the Style Area Pane and Style Gallery reflect the addition of this new style.

You will then see the Style Gallery update to display the new formatting for that style.

Microsoft Word’s Styles pane

Style Pane options

The different ways to modify a style in Microsoft Word are shown.

Word’s Modify Style dialog box with the Format option selected and opened.

Manually formatted text in Microsoft Word.

Text in Microsoft Word, with the Apply Styles dialog box on top showing the new style’s name, ‘New Style,’ and the New button highlighted.

A Microsoft Word document showing the newly added style in the Style Area Pane and the Style Gallery.

The Update Normal To Match Selection option is highlighted in the Style Gallery of the Home tab on the ribbon.