Sun, 8 Jan 2006 11:02:30 +0100 from Doug Robbins - Word MVP
:
"Colleen E" wrote in message
.. .
I have been reading a lot on styles in MS Word 2003, and have used them,
but remain confused about "linking" and "based on" concepts. I thought I
was doing OK, until I read that if you base a style on "no style", you
have to "set the language" because no style has no proofing by default.
I have read a lot on the subject, ie. "understanding styles", etc., but
cannot seem to find anything that explains these things.
See the following page of fellow MVP Shauna Kelly's website:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styl...sOnStyles.html
It's a good page, Doug, but unfortunately it doesn't answer Colleen's
question. (Perhaps standing on your head to post confused you. :-)
Colleen, I can answer about "based on".
Think of styles as a family tree. When style A is based on style B,
it inherits all of its properties from style B except those you
change.
Example: The Normal style is usually used for your standard paragraph
formating: space before, indention, font, line spacing, "keep lines
together" or not, and so forth. You'll want to base most of your
other paragraph styles on the Normal style. For instance, suppose you
create a "Blockquote" style. It would be based on Normal but would
have half-inch left and right margins and a smaller font size and
line spacing.
Why bother to do it this way? Suppose down the road you decide that
the font you originally chose looks too severe (or doesn't look
businesslike enough). You change the font name in the Normal style
only. If you've based all other paragraph styles on Normal, then the
fonts of all those other styles change to match.
In other words, "based on" helps you keep formatting consistent
except where you specifically want a difference. Without "based on",
you'd have to make that change individually in every style.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top-posting.
Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?