Word - Replacing Styles

MS Word has some very helpful power under the hood. Today we'll tap some of that power to make an instant revision of a whole document.

The sample doc is at wdsample04.doc

The task for the day is to change all the Normal styles in the document to Body Text, so the text in the document will be nicely indented. We already know it would be dangerous to just change Normal's settings to add an indent, because every style in the document that's based on Normal could pick up the indent, making for some very awkward situations (like Normal-tagged text in tables, all the Heading tags, TOC tags, etc.). Prevention is the best cure, and here the prevention is to use appropriate style tags.

We'll use MS Word's Find and Replace function to change all the Normal styles to Body Text. Click near the top of the document to drop the cursor without selecting anything. Then go to menu: Edit > Replace.... In the Find and Replace dialog, click on More.... That opens the Search Options extension in the dialog box. Notice that your cursor is blinking in the Find: box (if not, click to put it there).

Now we tell the Search program to find paragraphs tagged with the Normal style. To do this, click on the Format button, and select Style... You get a Find Style box. Scroll down and select Normal. Click OK.

Now notice that the Find: box has a little additional information inserted just below the box - "Format: Find Style: Normal". Click in the Replace With: box to set the focus there, and click the Format button, and select Style... again. This time, select Body Text (careful here - Block Text is right above Body Text and it's easy to get the wrong one) and click OK. Now the Replace With: box has the addition "Format: Style: Body Text."

Let's test the set-up, cautiously. Click on Find Next. The text for the first Normal paragraph gets highlighted. Click on Replace. The paragraph is changed to Body Text, and the next Normal paragraph is highlighted. Do it a couple more times, to see the effect - Click Find Next, then Replace.

Now we have full confidence in our Find/Replace set-up, so click Replace All to fix the whole document. Then click Close to get back to the document. The new and improved sample doc is at wdsample05.doc

The Find/Replace function is the main power tool for fixing up documents with inherited structure problems. I use it not only for changing styles and updating product names, but also for removing manual page breaks, converting two spaces after period at the end of sentences to single space, and digging out other manual overrides like tabs and empty paragraphs. It's worth your while to explore the MS Word Help files for Find and Replace options and procedures.