Displaying the Styles Area

When you’re working in Word, there are several ways to see the style you’ve applied to document text. This helps you make sure you’re formatting your document consistently.

The Styles box on the Formatting toolbar and the Styles and Formatting task pane display the style applied to a section of your document. But it is limited only to the selection.

The third way to view document styles is via the Styles Area. The Styles Area appears along the left side of the document window and displays the styles applied to each paragraph. It is available in Outline view and Normal view.

By default, the Styles Area is hidden. But you can activate it in a few simple steps:


On the Tools menu, select Options

Open the View tab

Under Outline and Normal options, set a Style area width

Click OK


The Styles Area will appear. It is separated from the rest of the document my a white border. You can drag the border to resize the area.