How to Work Around A Style Format

September 6, 2010 9:33 AM

Help with MS Word and style formatting. Details inside.

I'm using Word for Mac. I'm using styles to label my headings (I have 5 levels) so that when I create a TOC, it pulls in the headings to create the TOC. All fine and good.

However: I am trying to format only the heading and not the remainder of the paragraph and Word keeps applying the style to the entire paragraph. I need to follow APA v6, so under some levels of headings the text starts immediately after the heading with no line break. For example:

This text is the heading. This text is the start of the paragraph on the same line and is also being formatted with the style even if I just highlight the heading and apply the style.

I hope this explanation makes sense because it is making me crazy and there has to be a way to satisfy my needs for easy TOC creation and also adhere to APA style.

posted by archimago to Technology (3 answers total)

I'm not familiar with using headings to create TOCs, but I use styles a lot, and the most obvious way to achieve what you would want within your example paragraph would be to create a character style for your heading. The default Word style is a paragraph style, which is why your whole paragraph is affected. You can create a character style when you create a new style by changing the "style type" option.
posted by cincinnatus c at 9:54 AM on September 6, 2010

Unfortunately I'm on a PC and in Word 7 I can do this by selection.
I can think of a few duct-tape fixes I'd try - seeing if there is a section break that continues on the same line, or throwing the heading into a text box and then wrapping the text in beside it so it looks like its all the same line, maybe?
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 9:58 AM on September 6, 2010

Your problem is that you want the heading to be part of the paragraph.
MS Word doesn't do that. You'll need a paragraph 'break' between the heading and the topic.
That's how the TOC in Word works - it pulls those heading styles that you tell it to (H1-Hn) into the TOC, including ALL the words in that 'heading'.
The only thing you might try is to put your text into tables, with no borders. I believe you can change the style from one cell to another.
Yup - you can. I just tried it real quick, and you can do that.
You'll need to fuss with the cell properties of each cell, so the reader can't tell that the 'heading' is in a separate cell.
Also, your words won't wrap 'under' the heading - there will be a 'margin' at the end of the cell with your heading in it.
Hope this helps.
posted by dbmcd at 2:42 PM on September 6, 2010