This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
16 About Styles, Themes, and Templates
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Before You Begin
See Also
Edit Text
Use a Style
Use a Theme
Use a Template
You can begin with a template to create a document that has a prearranged look. Templates are useful when you have a form, for example, that you need to fill in. The template will be the blank form. A template can be anything that contains formatting or text or graphics that you want to reuse later. You can create a template that contains your letterhead and then begin with that template every time you write a business letter. The template keeps you from having to add your letterhead to the top of the document every time you write a letter, as you’d have to do if you began with a blank document.
A theme is a document-wide set of formats that complement one another. Themes include colors, fonts, and even lines and borders when appropriate. Suppose you sell two kinds of items on eBay: MP3 players and antiques. When you write a monthly newsletter that you send to your former buyers, you might want to use a modern theme for the MP3 buyers and a more traditional theme for your antiques clients. It doesn’t matter what your document says; the theme affects the overall look of your document.
You can apply a style to text within any document. For example, if you routinely use italicized, boldfaced text that is indented from surrounding paragraphs as you might do with a warning message that you add to documents you often write, a style enables you to apply that formatting before you type the warning or after you’ve completed typing it.
By using templates, themes, and styles, you reduce the amount of work you have to do to create a document.
Themes are associated with entire documents. Styles are usually associated with groups of text within a document. A template is to an entire document what a style is to selected text. When creating a document that’s to look like another that you often create, such as a fax letter that requires special formatting, you can elect to use a fax template you’ve already set up with the To:, From:, and Cover Page Note fields already placed where they belong, and you only need to fill in the details. Changing the theme of the fax document does not affect any of the words or layout of the fax document, but only the colors, fonts, and other formatting elements.
It’s important to remember that a template is a model for a document. A style is often a model for smaller blocks of text, usually paragraphs. A template may contain several styles. If you want to use a style that’s available to your current document or template, you can easily select that style and apply it to existing paragraphs or text you’re about to type.
Word offers several preset styles you can apply to text in your document, or you can create your own. You can see the predefined styles by clicking the down arrow to the right of the Styles section of your Home ribbon.
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When you want to use a template, you’ll click the Office button and select from one of the templates presented to you there.