Styles

When you build documents that are more complex than a business letter, such as a book, newsletter, or resume, the document is often broken down into sections. Each of these sections may have a similar appearance.

You can use styles to easily keep a consistent look throughout your document.

Tip

If you are familiar with ‘Styles’ in Microsoft® Word, KWord styles perform the same functions. You can skip to the next section.

As an example, if we look at a snippet of a document, and assign different styles to appropriate parts :

	Section Title ---->	Section 1: How to use your new computer

	Normal Text ---->	Do to a revolutionary new teaching method, we can now teach you how to use you computer in 10 minutes.

		We should begin by quickly summarizing the parts of your new computer.

		(text deleted)

	Section Title ---->	Section 2: What to do if the 10 minute manual didn't work.

In this example, you can see this computer manual consists of two sections. To the title text of each section, we have changed the text style to “Section Title”. The rest of the document text is left as “Normal Text”.

We do not need to know how exactly we want the text and paragraphs of these sections to look yet. All we need to do is identify these sections of text as “Section Titles” or “Normal Text”.

Once we have finished the document, you can change the look of all the text labeled “Section Title” all at once.

This will ensure that all section titles appear consistent throughout your document.

KWord has 11 predefined Styles. For a list of them, and the formatting options, click here.

Changing the Style of Text

To change the style of text, first, select the text you want the changes to apply to.

You can now change the character style in one of two ways:

Select Format->Style from the Menu bar. This will open the list of available styles, select the style from the list.
You can select the style using the drop down box on the Character Formatting Tool-bar. ( )

Creating a Style

If you plan on using Styles extensively in a large document, you will probably want to create new styles specific for your needs.

To create a new style:

Procedure 8.1.

Select Extra->Stylist from the Menu bar.
This will bring up a dialog box
Click Add.
This will bring up another dialog box
Type a descriptive name in the box labeled Name. This will be the name of the style.
Now select a style from the drop-down box labeled Following Style Template. This will be the basic style that you modify to create your new style (You have to start somewhere right?). If in doubt, ‘Standard’ is fine.
Now you can make the changes you need to create your new style.
The preview box will show you what your new style will look like.
Use the buttons labeled Font, Color, Spacing and Indents, Alignment, Borders, Numbering, and Tabulators to create the style.
If you want to change the scope of the style, see the section entitled Controlling Styles.
Click OK to create your new style.
Click Cancel to abort the creation of the style.

Changing the Font Size, Type etc.

You can change the font size, character set, font, character set and toggle italics and bold face by clicking on Font. This will open a new dialog box.

Using this dialog box, you can select the font, size, character set, italics and boldface options.

The preview box along the bottom, will show you how your current settings will appear.

Clicking OK will commit your changes to the style.

Clicking Cancel will abort all changes made in this dialog box.

Changing the Font Color

You can change the font color of your new style, by click on Color.

You can now choose a color for the selected text using the Color Selection Dialog Box.

Changing Paragraph Spacing and Indents

To change the paragraph spacing and indentation of the paragraph of your style, click on "Spacing and Indents". This opens a new dialog box.

This dialog box allows you to set the paragraph margins, the spacing between lines, and the spacing between paragraphs.

The first section of this dialog box is labeled Indent, and consists of three parts:

Left: You can indent all the lines of a paragraph by entering a value in this box. The first line is unaffected by this box. If you want to alter the first line, you must specify that separately.
Right: !!!!Just blacked out!!!!!
First Line: Any non-zero value entered in this text box, will shift the left margin of the first line.

The next section is labeled Line Spacing. It consists of two elements:

Drop-down box: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!Blacked out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Text box: By entering a value in here, you can adjust the spacing between lines from the default. If you enter a positive number, you will increase the spacing between lines. If, on the other hand, you enter a negative number, you will decrease the spacing between lines.
Note
Changes to this entry do NOT affect the line spacing between lines of different paragraphs.

The last section is labeled Paragraph Space . It consists of two entries:

Before: By entering a value in here, you can adjust the spacing before each paragraph from the default spacing. If you enter a positive number, you will increase the spacing before a paragraph. If, on the other hand, you enter a negative number, you will decrease the spacing before each paragraph.
After: By entering a value in here, you can adjust the spacing after each paragraph from the default spacing. If you enter a positive number, you will increase the spacing after a paragraph. If, on the other hand, you enter a negative number, you will decrease the spacing after each paragraph.

On the right of the dialog box, is a preview box, which will approximate the final layout of your document.

Changing Paragraph Alignment

To change how he text is placed within the line, click on Alignment. This will open a new dialog box.

As you can see, there are only 4 choices.

If you choose Left, Right or Center, the text will be moved on the line.

If you choose Block, KWord will increase the space between words, so that each line (with the exception of the last line), reaches both the left and right margins.

On the right of the dialog box, is a preview box, which will approximate the final layout of your document.

Changing Paragraph Borders

To add borders to your style, click on Borders. This will open a new dialog box.

You can tell KWord to surround (on some or all sides) a paragraph with a border. This border can be solid or not, of any color and of any size. You use this dialog panel to adjust the borders.

To define some borders for a paragraph, you first determine how the borders should appear on the document. Then you select which paragraph borders should be used. You can mix and match styles, weights and colors of paragraph borders for maximum flexibility in you document.

Determine the "Look" of the border.

Style

You can use this drop-down box to select the overall type of the new border.

Your choices are: Solid Line, Dash Line, Dot line, Dash Dot line, Dash Dot Dot line

Width

This will determine how wide the resulting border will be. It is measured in points.

Color

Clicking on the color bar will allow you to select a color using a new dialog box

Selecting the borders

	Select/Unselect Left Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the left paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the left paragraph border.
	Select/Unselect Right Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the right paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the right paragraph border.
	Select/Unselect Top Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the top paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the top paragraph border.
	Select/Unselect Bottom Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the bottom paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the bottom paragraph border.

The "Preview" window will show you how your paragraph borders will look.

Changing Paragraph Numbering/Bullets

To add bullets or numbering to your style, click Numbering.

!!!!!!!!!!Still needs work before writing!!!!!!!!!

Changing Tab-stops.

You can define tab stops for your styles. To do so, click Tabulators. This will open a new dialog box.

You can now add tab stops by:

Procedure 8.2.

Type the horizontal location of the tab stop in the space provided. The units are listed above the text box.
Select the type of tab stop from the list on the right.
Click Add.

When you are done adding tab stops, you can click OK to finish.

Deleting a Style

Deleting an unneeded style is easy.

Procedure 8.3.

Select Extra->Stylist from the Menu bar.
This will bring up a dialog box
From the list of available styles, select the style you want to delete by clicking once with the mouse left mouse button.
Warning
Be sure you have selected the correct style before you click Delete. KWord will not ask for confirmation, so you will not be given an opportunity to back out.
Click Delete.
The style is now deleted.

Tip

Certain styles in KWord are considered fundamental (Standard, Head 1, Head2, Head 3, Enumerated List, Bulleted List, and Alphabetical list) and cannot be deleted.

When you select any one of these styles to delete it, the Delete button will not function.

Editing a Style

The true power of styles, is the ability to edit the formatting options of that style after you have defined the style. By changing the formatting of the style, you immediately change every paragraph with that style, and you maintain a consistent look to your document.

You will also notice, that editing the formatting options of a style, uses the same interface you used to create the style in the first place.

To edit a current style:

Procedure 8.4.

Select Extra->Stylist from the Menu bar.
This will bring up a dialog box
Select the style you want to edit from the list in the left
Click Edit.
This will bring up another dialog box
Now you can make the changes you want to this style.
The preview box will show you what your new style will look like.
Warning
Do not change the name of your template.
Doing so will delete your current style from the list (and create a new one with the new name).
Any paragraphs which were originally formatted with this style, will revert to “Standard”.
Use the buttons labeled Font, Color, Spacing and Indents, Alignment, Borders, Numbering, and Tabulators to alter the look of the style.
If you want to change the scope of the style, see the section entitled Controlling Styles.
Click OK to commit your changes.
Click Cancel to abort all changes to this style.