Word - Triage 2 Styles on parade After checking an inherited document's formatting markers to see if the patient is breathing, move on to check the pulse — styles. In Print Layout View (menu: View > Print Layout) of the document, you can view a document's styles by clicking in one paragraph at a time and looking at the Styles box on the left end of your toolbar, but working in Normal view you can see all the style assignments at once. The styles are listed in a column at the left edge, one style for each paragraph in the view. If you do not see a style-listing column at the left edge in Normal View, here's how to get one. Go to menu: Tools > Options. The dialog comes up in the View tab. Go to the bottom of the dialog for Outline and Normal Options. Set Style Area Width to 0.8 or 1.0 (personal preference). Click on Okay. Now you have the style-list on the left in Normal View. Tap PageDown a couple of times, and watch the display in the style-list. Every paragraph should have a style assigned that describes that paragraph's function. You expect to see a list like: Heading 1, Body Text, Body Text, Heading 2, Body Text, List, List, List, List, Body Text, Heading 2... a nice descriptive list of the components of the document. Here's the worst case scenario: Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal, Normal.... A document with a style-list like that is a Blue Ribbon Prize Sow's Ear. Every paragraph is styled Normal, with local overrides to set font, size, indentation, bolding, etc. The document uses none of the bone and muscle of Word formatting, and relies entirely on cosmetic makeup tools to hide the horrors that lie beneath the skin. There is no way to view the outline of the document, generate an automatic Table of Contents, re-use the components, make global formatting changes, or revise or edit the document without arduous, painful, error-prone, painful, difficult, painful, gruesome line-by-line archaic type-writer-style grunt work. Did I mention it would be painful, too? Right now I've got a document on my screen that is supposed to be an official (it's got a logo!) template for project design description. It failed the format marker check gloriously, and it's got every paragraph — Title, TOC, headings and all — styled Normal. This document, as a template, offers an inordinate amount of what biztalk calls "opportunity". Take a quick peek at some of the documents you've inherited. How do they look so far? Pretty solid, you think? Wait 'til the next topic.