Making Changes Globally in a Word Document by Using Paragraph Styles
In technical writing there’s usually more than one way to accomplish any given task.
Take the case where we have a MS Word document and we have a lot of different paragraph styles in it. But how are you going to shift all section headers to right by one tab at the same time and then change their colors to red?
We cannot use the Find-and-Replace functionality here. It certainly is possible to search for the paragraphs by their style but you need to come up with a search word to be able to do that. You cannot select all the headers at the same time for a global edit.
You can locate all such headers in the TOC but cannot select all of them simultaneously in one move.
By using another method, you can achieve the same in no time.
First display the Styles and Formatting pane of your document by selecting Format > Styles and Formatting from your main menu.
From the list of paragraph styles, select one. There will be a dark blue box around it.
Bring your cursor on top of the style name to display the drop-down menu arrow.
Click the arrow to display the following options:
Select All X Instance(s)
Modify…
Delete…
Update to match the Selection
Select the “Select All X Instance(s)” option to highlight every piece of text in your document which has that paragraph style.
The click on the right-indent button which is placed on your toolbar. The headers will shift towards right by a tab space.
You can select RED by first clicking the Font Color button on the toolbar and then selecting RED. RED will now be the color of all your headers.
And that would the last thing you need to do! Congratulations.
A much more comprehensive edit can be accomplished when you select all the instances of a particular paragraph style.
Select “Modify” from the Styles and Formatting pane’s style drop-down list to change the style.
Every time that paragraph style is used it will display the changes you’ve made in that dialog box.
CAUTION: If you select the “Add to template” check box and then click OK, you’ll make the changes a permanent part of your style sheet.
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