Styles (Unit 14)

A style in digital documents is a set of formatting instructions that you can apply to text or other content.
Styles can help to maintain consistency in a document’s formatting. This is important in formal contexts, such as creating reports or presentations.
You can create your own custom styles or use the ones already provided in the software. Every style has a unique name for easy identification.
When you update a style, all content formatted with that style is automatically updated. This feature can help save a lot of time in a long document.
Style sets or themes allow you to apply a consistent look and feel across different parts of a document or different documents.

Paragraph styles apply to whole paragraphs and can define properties like alignment, line spacing, indentation, and more.
Character styles can be used to format individual characters, words, or groups of words with specific font styles, sizes, colours, and more.
Linked styles can be applied as either character or paragraph styles, providing flexibility in formatting.

Applying styles to your documents can greatly speed up the formatting process.
They also make your documents more accessible, as many screen reading tools recognise and read out style information.

You can modify an existing style by altering its formatting properties.
To create a new style, you simply give it a name and define its formatting properties. Once created, the style will appear in the styles list and can be applied to relevant text.
A good practice is to base new styles on existing ones, which can speed up the style creation process and ensure consistency.

Consistent use of styles can improve your document’s readability and appearance. This can impact perception of your document’s quality and professionalism.
Styles are particularly beneficial for large documents with many sections and subheadings, as they allow you to apply changes across the document quickly and uniformly.

Remember, understanding and effectively using styles is a key component of comprehensively managing your digital documents.