Have you ever started formatting a document and it started “acting funny?” There is a way to make the madness stop. They are called Styles. Styles give documents a consistent, uniform look and make editing a breeze.
A majority of legal documents are created by applying direct formatting or what I like to call “manual override.” For example, say you want to make your paragraph double-spaced. Normally you might select the paragraph and use one of the toolbar buttons to create the double space. But to do a whole document like that would be tedious and time consuming especially long memorandums or briefs. This type of formatting is popular mainly because it requires no special knowledge. Essentially you are using Word as though it were a typewriter.
Additionally, using manual override formatting disables many helpful Word functions, or makes them only partially disabled (i.e.” “crazy-acting” document). Therefore, for all its popularity, manual overrides are an inefficient way to format a Word document.
Unfortunately, because of lack of training and awareness, many users of Word refuse to use Styles. They assert their creative right to format their documents any way they want. They suggest that perhaps Word should be redesigned so users of manual overrides have the same access to features as those who format using styles. At first, this request sounds reasonable, but upon closer review, it’s as logical an argument as insisting all roads be redesigned so that pedestrians can travel as fast as cars.
Styles are THE way to format documents. Applying appropriate Styles in a document has many benefits. I’ve listed the top reasons for using Styles in a Word document:
- Styles prevent document corruption (i.e., unable to open a document, a document not printing or paginating properly) by reducing the amount of formatting code embedded in a document
- Some formatting features in Word are either crippled or disabled without styles. Want to build a table of contents or update a document’s paragraph numbering? It’s a long, tedious process without Styles.
- Creating a document with styles saves time in the editing process. Reworking a document’s contents takes minutes instead of hours using styles.
- Using styles creates smaller documents. When filing a brief electronically with a court that imposes size limits, this can be valuable. Once a high fee earner told me he spent hours one night trying to make a document smaller so it would be uploaded to a court’s website. What a waste of valuable billable time!
- Identifying parts of your document is easier using Styles. By using styles, you can use the Document Map feature in Word to move from one area to a document to the next with the quickness and speed that will amaze you.
- Employing styles in a document saves you time by freeing you from revisiting each and every paragraph to reformat. You update a style once, and it cascades the changes through your whole document.
- Styles create documents with consistent formats (all the titles look the same, etc.). This makes it easier to cut and paste from one document to another.
- Collaboration is made easier when you provide each party with the same formatting choices. When everyone is using the same formatting, creating the final document goes much smoother and quicker.
- Converting a Word outline to a PowerPoint presentation can only be done successfully if you use Word styles in your document.
- You already use styles. For example, indexes, hyperlinks and tables already automatically use pre-defined styles when you create them.
When Should Styles Be Used?
The short answer is 99% of the time. In practicality, even the experts admit that the use of manual overrides has its place in certain circumstances. The table below gives examples of when to use manual overrides and when to use styles.
Unless you are deeply into masochism or are content to use Word only on a superficial level, sooner or later you will need to learn how to employ styles into your document. Since there is no escape from styles, best to surrender to that fact and learn to use them instead of jumping through formatting hoops to avoid them.
Join me in a webinar as I show you some easy ways to create a document using styles. It will be the best educational investment you’ll make since you enrolled in law school.
