Italics

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SF

I am writing a novel and just converted all hard page breaks and chapter
headings, etc., to Styles.
A wonderful new world has just opened up to me!!

But how do I italicize some parts of the text?

For example, in the following sentence, how do I put what Mary said in
italics (without direct formatting)?

Mary said, "How dare you!"

(Or is there, as I suspect, a limit to what Styles are meant to do?)
 
When you create a new style, you can select whether it will be a Paragraph,
Character, Table or List style.

For your needs, you would create a new Character style in which the font is
formatted as italic.

The advantage of using a style in such cases rather than using direct
formatting is the ease with which you can change the appearance of all
instances of the style in the text by re-defining the style. If you were to
use direct formatting, it would be necessary to go to each instance and
change it, though there are ways in which that can be automated.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP
 
In cases where italics are for emphasis, however, there's generally little
to be gained in using a character style rather than direct formatting.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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all may benefit.
 
Aha!
So I can take it further!

Suzanne, I do understand what you mean. The scattered and occasional use of
italics here and there may not warrant a Style, but hey! I'm on a roll,
here. I'm going to use a character Style. Once I come to my senses, I'll be
more discerning. . . :-)
 
There may be little to be gained in some ways but I find it useful to have
separate character styles for separate purposes regardless of the actual
styling. In one document I am working on at the moment I use italics for two
different purposes and I have two character styles both with the same
formatting (underlying font plus italic). I may change the style of one (or
both) of them and if I do I know only the relevant words will be affected.
 
Unless it is likely that you will change the formatting used for emphasis
to, say, bold or bold *and* italic, a character style doesn't buy you
anything *in this particular instance*. I fully support the use of character
styles for other purposes. For example, in dictionary text I've set, I've
used character styles for the defined term, reference to the defined term
within the definition, cross-references, etc., knowing that the publisher
may change the formatting from what I've used. The weakness of character
styles in current versions of Word is that they are removed (just as direct
font formatting is) by Ctrl+Spacebar.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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