Academic Technology

Modify a Style in Word

Did you know that Word has built-in styles for headings, body text, and lists? Using these built-in styles allows you to create consistency in a documents look and feel, and to easily change the entire look of a document.

Find Styles in the Ribbon

You can find these styles in the “Ribbon”. If you are not sure how to open the ribbon Microsoft has a how-to guide. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to show/hide the Ribbon:

  • Windows
    • Cntrl + F1
  • Mac
    • Command + Option + R
Built-in styles are located in the “Ribbon”

Modify styles – 2 ways

From the styles pane

  • Select the item you want to alter
  • Go to styles pane
  • Hover until you see the down arrow
  • Select Modify Style

From the Ribbon

  • Right-click on the style you want to change
  • Select Modify

Changing an existing style

Once you’ve hit modify you’ll have lots of options to change the look and feel of a particular element. In addition to quick changes to font family, font size, line-height and level of indentation you can alter other attributes by using the Format drop-down menu in the lower-left of the “Modify Style” window

Resources