Why Styles are Your New Best Friend?
Many of the automated features in Word require that you use styles. For example, the Table of Contents can only be generated automatically if you use styles consistently.
What is a style?
A style is a set of formatting characteristics stored together that can be applied to text. A style can apply several formats in one quick step. For example:
To apply formatting without using styles:
Select the text
Change the font size to 14 pt
Turn on bold, turn on italics
To apply the same formatting with a style:
Select the text
Choose the Heading 1 style from the style drop down box
All the styles you'll need for your thesis are part of the template, and you can modify them to suit your preferences, as long as they stay within the Thesis Guidelines from the Faculty of Graduate Studies.
A guide to modifying and using styles is available in Step 4 - Writing.
Styles will keep your formatting consistent
Styles are a way to keep the formatting of your thesis structured and consistent. Each kind of formatting is turned into a style, and laid out before you start typing. Then all you need to think about is where the text belongs in the greater structure of the document - not how to apply a particular formatting attribute.
Have you ever been working on a document, and you're about to start a new section. Then you try to remember what the previous section heading looks like. Was it Times New Roman font? Or Arial? Was
is 12 pt and bold? Or was it centered and italics? Instead of guessing what the previous section heading looks like, or having to scroll through the document to look at it, you can use styles. It's a section heading? Then apply the Heading 2 style. It's a chapter heading? Then apply the Heading 1 style. Then all of the headings will look consistent.
Styles will help generate a table of contents (with page numbers) automatically
If you use styles, the Table of Contents on the Front Matter template will automatically pick up the text with the Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 styles applied, and show the page number that it falls on. See "Creating a table of contents" for more help.
Styles will help you navigate your L O N G document.
If you use styles, the Document Map will help you navigate your document. To try this feature, open this Word file:Sample Standard and try these steps:
From the menu, choose View --> Document Map
The panel on the left hand side should show all of the headings (all text formatted with a heading style).
Click on a heading to navigate to that point in the document.
Choose View --> Document Map to turn it off.