If you are writing your document in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, the software provides a set of basic styles. These may be paragraph styles (which apply to a whole paragraph) or character styles (which apply to characters within a paragraph).
When you open a document, you may see a list of set styles such as:
- Normal
- Heading 1
- Heading 2
- Title
- Subtitle
- Quote
- Emphasis
- Strong.
Each of these styles has a different look. For example, they may be:
- Normal – 11 point Calibri with 6 points between paragraphs, left aligned
- Heading 1 – 18 point Calibri with 24 points following, left aligned
- Heading 2 – 14 point Calibri with 12 points following, left aligned
- Title – 24 point bold Calibri with 24 points following, centred
- Subtitle – 18 point bold Calibri with 18 points following, centred
- Quote – 9 point Calibri with 12 points following, centred
- Emphasis – Normal style in italics
- Strong – Normal style in bold.
To apply paragraph styles, click on a paragraph, then click on the style you want to apply. To apply character styles, select the text, then click on the style you want to apply.
If you do not like the look of the styles supplied with the program, you can change the style or add new styles. You will find many online guides to changing and using styles for Microsoft Word for PCs or Mac, or for Google Docs.
