Word 2010 Templates: Quick Tip

When creating a template in Word 2010, it’s best not to base heading styles on other heading styles.  First, it’s not necessary to do so, but more importantly, if you base Heading 4 on Heading 3 (for example), whenever you modify Heading 3 — such as to add underlining or bolding — your changes will ripple through Heading 4, as well.  Typically, that’s not what most people intend.

You’ll encounter fewer problems later on if you base heading styles on “(no style).”

Heading styles are (or should be) linked to a multilevel list style.  If you need to change the numbering or lettering associated with a particular heading style, you need to edit the multilevel list style.  (In versions of Word before Word 2007, you could edit the numbering scheme directly by editing the heading style itself.  Starting with Word 2007, Microsoft broke the direct connection between heading styles and numbering, which confused even many advanced users and consultants.)

The best and most authoritative source of information about setting up heading styles with automatic numbering in MS Word is Shauna Kelly’s articles, including this one.

Just a very quick tip to help guide you in the template creation process.  I will post additional quick tips about templates in the near future.