ABOVE: The easy auto-contents created in the Word file where I wrote this article, the result of good basic Word file formatting.
The basics of Word file formatting still seem to be a mystery to most of the people using the software. These are the two biggest mistakes I see as a copy editor.
By Paula Ruzek, copy editor and proofreader (see my editing services)
Microsoft Word has been the dominant word-processing program for 30+ years; you’d think we would all have a pretty good grasp of at least the basics by now. I’ve been copy editing clients’ Word documents for 25+ years and it still amazes me how little people know about the basics of Word file formatting and how to produce a neat document that is easy to navigate.
I don’t consider myself an expert in the whole program, but my early career in journalism imbued me with a strong sense of structure, knowledge of fonts, and the importance of the heading hierarchy.
Here are the two biggest mistakes I see in every file and how to fix them.
The two biggest mistakes of Word file formatting
1. People don’t use the built-in ‘Styles’ on the ‘Home’ ribbon
The ‘Styles’ are the single most important feature in creating a good-looking, easy-to-navigate Word file. When you create a new blank document, Word automatically gives you its default ‘Styles’ (also known as a style sheet). In my Microsoft 365 version of Word, that is the font Aptos for body text (‘Normal’, 12pt, and ‘No Spacing’), Aptos Display font for headings (‘Heading’, ‘Heading 2’, etc.), and various other weights of Aptos for the sundry other styles.
Previous default fonts included Arial and Calibre. If you prefer either of those, or something else, DON’T DO THE CHANGE MANUALLY! If you want different fonts, use either of the two methods discussed in the next two sections.
Make changes using the ‘Design’ ribbon
The ‘Design’ ribbon enables you to change the default fonts just in this document.
- Click on the ‘Design’ ribbon.
- Look to the right-hand side for an ‘A’ in a square with the word ‘Fonts’ underneath.
- Click on the button.
- The dropdown menu gives a choice of 25 font combinations for heading/body text. Run your cursor down them and any text you have on the page will temporarily change so you can see what it looks like.
- If none of these choices suit, the ‘Customize fonts’ option at the bottom of the options enables you to select whatever font combination you desire.
Note also the long ‘Document formatting’ section of the ribbon. The options in here can change both the Word file formatting look and the fonts of your document – all with the click of one button! Again, you can run your cursor along the options and any text you have on the page will temporarily change.
Modify the style in the ‘Styles’ section
This method gives you more precise control over the changes you can make to a style. It is ‘manual’ in one sense, but the changes you make are permanent and will apply to that style throughout the document.
- On the ‘Home’ ribbon, in the ‘Styles’ section, right-click on the style you want to change.
- Select ‘Modify’ in the dropdown menu.
- This brings up the ‘Modify Style’ box. There are a lot of controls in here, but it’s not difficult to understand. Under the ‘Formatting’ heading, you can change the font and point size, font weight, setting (left, centred, right, justified), and a few more.
- Down the bottom of the ‘Modify Style’ box is the ‘Format’ button. Click this to access more detailed control boxes for font, paragraph, tabs and more. ‘Paragraph’ gives access to spacing settings.
Modifying one style, e.g. ‘Normal’, may or may not change related styles such as ‘No Spacing’, depending on its settings; same goes for ‘Heading’ and ‘Heading 2, 3, 4’.
This method is best used for finetuning (e.g. font size or spacing) rather than wholesale changes to every style in your Word file formatting. Make your high-level font/format style changes in the ‘Design’ ribbon, then use individual style modifications if needed.
Why you shouldn’t change fonts manually
A manual change is one where you highlight text and select a new font/size from the ‘Font’ section of the ‘Home’ ribbon. The worst styles to change this way are ‘Normal’ or ‘No Spacing’. These dominant styles control most of the file and you can be sure that the manual changes will ‘fall off’ text at some point, leaving you with mixed fonts.
In a long document, it is time-consuming and inefficient to be constantly changing fonts and spacing for the dominant styles using manual methods. The occasional manual change is OK – I do it myself to improve visual spacing – but not as the dominant way to change formatting in a document.
Consider that you may want to make a change once you are well into compiling the document. If you are using the ‘Styles’ correctly, you just need to make a single modification as described in the previous sections.
But if you have been modifying all your styles manually using highlighting, change is not so easy. You would have to highlight each part of the text you wanted to change and do a manual change. This is a waste of time, saps your energy and leaves you open to introducing errors.
Now, use the styles in your Word file formatting!
Every paragraph of text in your Word document should carry the correct style/tag from the ‘Styles’ section. The most important are ‘Normal’, ‘No Spacing’, and all the ‘Heading’ styles. These are the basics of creating a neat, easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate file.
Use or tailor the other existing styles in the ‘Styles’ section if you need pull-out quotes, indented italic text for material quoted from other sources or similar.
Be careful with copy-and-paste
Directly copying-and-pasting from one Word file into another (Control-C then Control-V) risks importing style settings from one Word file to the other. It’s a common way people end up with mixed fonts and spacing in a file particularly for ‘Normal’.
To avoid this error, insert your cursor where you want to place the copied text. Right-click and select the paste option showing as a clipboard with an ‘A’, which will paste it as plain unformatted text (‘Normal’ style).
A useful setting to clean up a file
Trying to clean up a file with a mishmash of fonts is slow and unrewarding. To completely restyle such a file:
- save a copy, so you can refer to the original Word file formatting
- do Control-A, to select all text in the file
- click the dropdown menu arrow on the right-hand side of the ‘Styles’ section on the ‘Home’ ribbon
- select ‘Clear formatting’. This will return all text in the file to ‘Normal’ style.
Be judicious in your use of this option. The bigger the file, the longer it will take to restyle. Make sure you have the time and patience to do it. You can also use this method on just parts of a file; just highlight the part that needs cleaning up.
2. People don’t create a proper heading hierarchy
All documents need a structure. The longer the document, the more crucial the structure becomes. We organise our documents into parts, chapters, sections and subsections using headings – Heading 1 through to Heading 5, although once you have reached Heading 4 your document is becoming quite complex. Usually, three levels of headings are enough.
Often we use numbering as part of a heading hierarchy; e.g. 1, 1.1, 1.1.1. Three levels are enough where understandability is concerned!
I am surprised by the lack of a solid heading hierarchy in most of the major documents I edit. Sorting out and imposing the correct hierarchy is the single biggest improvement I make to Word file formatting.
- The ‘Title’ style is for the title of your document.
- ‘Heading 1’ is for the chapter level (or part level if your document is that big).
- ‘Heading 2’ is for headings within the chapter.
- ‘Heading 3’ is for subsections of ‘Heading 2’.
- ‘Heading 4’ is for subsections of ‘Heading 3’.
That’s about as far as you need to go for 95% of business documents. If you need anything more, bold ‘Normal’ text is a good option.
Three big benefits of a good heading hierarchy
A properly styled heading hierarchy in your Word document provides three BIG benefits.
1. Easy file navigation.
The headings populate the navigation pane on the left-hand side of your screen. The headings are shown indented to their heading level, 1 to 3, with 4 and below usually hidden in dropdown arrows. You can click on any heading in the navigation pane to go immediately to that section of text. Brilliant! It also makes it easy to spot if a heading has been tagged incorrectly or if something is carrying a heading tag when it should be, say, text that should be ‘Normal’.
2. You can create an auto-contents in seconds.
Creating a contents page for a large document is simple when the headings are correctly styled.
- Go to the page in the document where you want to insert the contents.
- Click on the ‘References’ ribbon.
- The first button on the left is ‘Table of Contents’. Click on it.
- There are two options to create an automatic table of contents, the only difference being in the heading – Contents or Table of Contents. Make your choice.
- Every Heading 1 to 3 will be used to create the table including page numbers.
There is usually a bit more effort in getting the table to look good; for example, making the chapter headings (Heading 1) bold. This can be done through the ‘Custom Table of Contents’ option in the ‘Table of Contents’ button menu. You can also add Heading 4, 5 and 6 to the auto-contents here if you wish.
3. You can move sections of text using the navigation pane.
Say you want to move a section of text in your document.
- Go to the heading of the section in the navigation pane, click and hold on it.
- Drag the heading to the position in the hierarchy that you want to move it.
- An underline will appear. Align it with the position you want and ‘drop’ it.
- The text is now in its new position. Restyle the heading level if needed.
This is a great way to move text efficiently; much better and easier that manual highlighting and moving or copy/paste.
Complications in a heading hierarchy
I favour simple heading hierarchies with any numbering restricted to the chapter level (Heading 1) and added as part of the chapter name. However, exceptionally large documents may require the type of organisation created by multi-level numbering.
Word has settings for automatic multi-level numbered headings that can be applied to Headings 1, 2, 3 etc. If done correctly, it shows in the Heading name in the ‘Styles’ section as ‘1.1.1.1. Heading’.
I find setting up automatic multi-level numbered headings to be quite difficult and don’t recommend it to the average Word user.
See what this blog looks like with the correct Word file formatting (PDF, 149KB)