• 1. Introduction
• 2. Styling Paragraphs
• 2.1 Indentation Field Set
• 2.2 Spacing Field Set
• 2.3 Pagination Field Set
• 2.4 Show Paragraph Marks and Other Hidden Symbols
• 2.5 Show Vertical and Horizontal Rulers
• 3. Named Styles
• 4. Multilevel Lists
• 4.1 Linking Multilevel Lists and Named Styles
• 5. Table of Contents

1. Introduction

This document covers some of the most commonly used and useful features in Word specifically for creating legal and business documents.

This document does presume a basic familiarity with Word.

2. Styling Paragraphs

To add a paragraph in Word, type some text and press the Enter key.

To open the Paragraph dialog box to style a paragraph, place the cursor anywhere in the paragraph and click the bottom right corner of the Paragraph group, in the Home ribbon (see picture below).

2.1 Indentation Field Set

The Before text field pushes text to the left and the After text field pushes text to the right (similar to a margin).

The Special field, First line option indents only the first line in the paragraph according to the By field (in addition to the Before text) and the Hanging option indents all the lines after the first line.

The Hanging option is commonly used for lists to indent all lines after the first line with the list numbers or bullets.

2.2 Spacing Field Set

The Before and After fields add space before and after the paragraph. The Line spacing and At fields specify the line height for the paragraph lines.

Use the Before and After fields to add spacing. Do not use unneeded empty lines for spacing instead.

2.3 Pagination Field Set

The Pagination field set in the Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box tells Word how to behave when a paragraph overflows on the next page.

The Keep with next field is used to keep several paragraphs together (even if the paragraphs are inside a table) so they cannot be split across pages and either all the paragraphs fit in the page or all of them are moved together on to the next page.

The Keep lines together field tells whether the paragraph lines can be split across pages or not.

The Page break before field tells whether the paragraph should start in a new page and is often used for top level heading style.

The Keep with next and Keep lines together fields are some of the most commonly used pagination features, used to group together sections of the document so they cannot be split across pages (the same approach will also work for tables).

To group together a section of the document so it cannot be split across pages, we will start by creating a document with several paragraphs (see picture below).

Highlight all the paragraphs except the last paragraph in the section, set the Keep with next field to checked and Keep lines together field to checked (see picture below).

Go to the last paragraph in the section, set the Keep with next field to unchecked and the Keep lines together field to checked (see picture below).

If you try adding text before the section, you will see it cannot be split across pages. Either the entire section fits in the page or it is moved on to the next page.

2.4 Show Paragraph Marks and Other Hidden Symbols

To show or hide paragraph marks and other hidden symbols like end of line, end of paragraph, page breaks, section breaks etc., click the end of paragraph symbol ¶ at the top right corner of the Paragraph group in the Home ribbon (see picture below).

Showing the paragraphs marks and other hidden symbols can be helpful in understanding and debugging documents, and finding things like extra empty pages.

2.5 Show Vertical and Horizontal Rulers

To show the vertical and horizontal rulers, check the Ruler field in the Show group, in the View ribbon (see picture below).

The horizontal ruler can be useful for visually setting the paragraph indention options.

3. Named Styles

Word comes with a preset list of named styles, like, normal, headings, title etc. The styles can be customized and more styles can be added. Use named styles to easily and consistently style documents.

To style a paragraph using named styles, place the cursor anywhere in the paragraph and select a style from the Style gallery in the Styles group, in the Home ribbon or from the Styles panel (see picture below).

To open the Styles panel with the complete list of named styles, click the bottom right corner of the Styles group, in the Home ribbon (see picture below).

To open the Modify Style dialog box to modify a named style, right-click a named style from the Style gallery or Styles panel and select the Modify… item from the dropdown menu (see picture below).

Some of the most commonly used options are the Formatting field set and the Paragraph… item from the Format dropdown button to open the Paragraph dialog box (see picture below).

After clicking the OK button and closing the dialog box the styles changes are saved and are immediately reflected in the documents.

4. Multilevel Lists

Multilevel lists are not as simple as single level lists and bullet lists, and are something many people find challenging and frustrating.

To go over and cover all the multilevel list options, we will define a new multilevel list. Start by creating a list of paragraphs (see picture below).

Highlight the list and click the multilevel lists dropdown button in the Paragraph group, in the Home ribbon (see picture above).

Word comes with a number of preset multilevel lists but we will be creating a new list.

To open the Define New Multilevel List dialog box, click the Define New Multilevel List… item at the bottom of the dropdown menu (see picture below).

The Define Multilevel List dialog box lets you define up to 9 levels. We will only set 3 levels (in most cases setting 3 to 5 levels is more than enough).

Select level 1 under Click level to modify at the top. Clear the Enter formatting for number field in the Number format field set. Select the 1, 2, 3, … option in the Number style for this level field and type ".".

In the Position field set, set the Number alignment field to Left, the Aligned at field to 0" and the Text indent at field to 0.5".

Select level 2. Clear the Enter formatting for number field. Select the Level 1 option from Include level number from field, type ".", select the 1, 2, 3, … option in the Number style for this level field and type ".".

Set the Aligned at field to 0.5" and the Text indent at field to 1".

Select level 3. Clear the Enter formatting or number field. Select the Level 1 option from the Include level number from field, type ".", select the Level 2 option, type ".", select the 1, 2, 3, … option in the Number style for this level field and type ".".

Set the Aligned at field to 1" and the Text indent at field to 1.5" (see picture below).

Click the OK button to save the changes and close the dialog box.

To increase or decrease the list item level, press the Tab and Shift-Tab keys. Alternatively, use the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent buttons in the Paragraph group, in the Home ribbon (see picture below).

To close the list, go to the end of the list and type the Enter key twice. You can do the same to create a break in the middle of the list.

Type some text, press the Enter key, type another list item and press the Enter key again (see picture below).

To continue the list, place the cursor on the new list item. Click the multilevel list dropdown button and select the list under the Lists in Current Documents section.

However, instead of continuing the list a new list is started because there is something between our list and the new list item.

To continue the list, right-click the list item and click Continue Numbering… from the dropdown menu. Make sure you are using the same lists (see picture below).

4.1 Linking Multilevel Lists and Named Styles

We will continue our previous list and link it to the heading styles.

To open the Define New Multilevel List dialog box to continue modifying our list, place the cursor anywhere on the list and click the Define New Multilevel List… item.

When using multilevel lists with heading styles it is a common practice to not use indentation so we will first remove the indentation from the list.

Select levels 1. Set the Aligned at field to 0" and the Indent text at field to 0". Click the Set for All Levels button and click OK (see picture below).

Click the More button at the bottom left corner of the dialog box to show more fields (see picture below).

For levels 1 to 3 set the Follow number with field to Space and the Link level to style field to Heading 1 to 3 respectively.

Click the OK button to save the changes and close the dialog box. Now creating a list sets the heading styles and setting the heading styles creates a list.

5. Table of Contents

We will continue our previous example of a multilevel headings list and insert a table of contents.

To insert a blank page for the table of contents, go to the beginning of the document and click the Page Break button in the Pages group, in the Insert ribbon (see picture below).

Click the Table of Contents dropdown button in the Table of Contents group, in the Reference ribbon (see picture below).

Word comes with a number of preset table of contents. Select one of the Automatic Tables (see picture below).

Although you can create a custom table of contents. You will need to manually add a table of contents heading and some of the options will still be missing.

Word creates a table of contents of all the Headings with the same order and level, and their page numbers (see picture below).

The table of contents uses the TOC Heading and TOC styles with the same level number as the Heading styles.

You can modify the TOC Heading and TOC styles if, for example, the paragraph indentation was changed for some reason.

To open the Update Table of Contents dialog box to update the table of contents, click inside the table of contents, click the Update Table above the table of contents, select the Update entire table option and click OK to update and close the dialog box (see picture below).

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