MS Word for Scientists

Styles for formatting

Now that we have styles in place, we can use these to format the text. Editing all headings at once helps where a rejected manuscript must be re-formatted to a different publisher's style guide, or when a deadline-day check uncovers unexpected formatting guidelines…

• Modify the "Heading 1" style to use 14-pt Times New Roman bold
• In the Home ribbon menu, select Styles, right-click "Heading 1" and select Modify.
• Change the properties in the "Formatting" section.
• Click "OK". All level-1 headings now exhibit the new format.

Notice that the "Heading 1" style inherits properties from the "Normal" style. Updating the "Normal" style will change its dependent styles.

• Modify the "Normal" style to use double line spacing
• In the "Modify Style" dialog box, use the Format drop-down button and select Paragraph….
• Under "Spacing → Line spacing", select "Double".
• Headings are now double-spaced too: they've inherited all properties of the "Normal" style that are not explicitly overwritten in their own definition.

Formatting for legibility

Headings stand out most clearly when set apart with white space. Accomplishing this with the Return key leads to inconsistency, and can leave headers 'hanging', separate from their associated content. To appreciate how, we need to see how Word is representing white space.

• Turn on paragraph marks (¶)
• From the File menu, select Options → Display. From "Always show these formatting marks on the screen", select "Paragraph marks" and "Object anchors". Click "OK".

Word can end a line by starting a new paragraph (), or by starting a new line within a paragraph ( + )

• Justify the text of a paragraph in your document
• From the Home ribbon menu, select "Paragraph → ☰ (Justify)".
• (If you can't find the ☰ button, then from the "Indents and Spacing" tab of the ↘ extended paragraph options, select "General → Alignment → Justified".)
• Insert a manual line break in the middle of a line.
• Type +
• Compare this with a new paragraph ().
• Note the different symbols for the manual break, which continues the paragraph onto a new line; and the paragraph break, which ends the paragraph.

Now let's misbehave and introduce inconsistent spacing around headings.

• Tip: The format of the ¶ mark at the end of the line dictates the format of the bullet at the start of a list entry.

• Add a "Normal" paragraph break before a heading
• With the cursor at the end of the "Normal" formatted text immediately before one of your headings, press .
• Add a "Heading" paragraph break before a level two heading
• With the cursor at the start of the "Heading" line, press .
• Add a paragraph break after the level two heading, and add content above to 'chase' it towards the end of a page.

Now you have two lines before your heading, but these lines have different font sizes – which you should be able to detect from the formatting of the ¶ marks. If you decide to change the spacing, you'll have to go through every header and add new lines. Notice also that the heading is 'dangling' at the end of the page: the associated content has become detached from its heading, hindering readability.

Let's do this 'properly' using styles.

• Delete the extra lines
• Modify the paragraph spacing for the "Heading 2" style
• In the "Modify Style" dialog box, use the Format drop-down button and select Paragraph….
• Under "Spacing", insert 48 pt Before, and 24 pt After.
• Set the heading to keep with the next paragraph
• On the "Line and Page Breaks" tab of the Paragraph dialog box, check ☑ "Keep with next".

Lovely – now all our headings have the same format, without any chance of sloppiness creeping in. Even the line numbering is neater.

For a really professional outcome, it's possible to implement the "baseline grid" principle; by setting a Paragraph → Spacing → Line spacing Exactly at 12 pt (say), and using multiples of 12 pt for the Before and After spacing of each style, you can guarantee that every line on every page will align exactly with every line on every other page of the document.

The previous image illustrates another typographic concept: Widows and orphans. The last line on one page is all alone, and the first line on the next has lost its parent – look at the poor things dangling there all alone.

Not only does this look untidy, it impedes readabilty; checking the "Line and Page Breaks" Pagination option ☑ "Widow/Orphan control" will avoid this sorry situation.

• Tip: Create a non-breaking space with + Ctrl + to keep a number with its unit (e.g. 4 000 mm).

Tables of contents

Using a consistent heading structure also facilitates another otherwise fiddly task: including a table of contents. References → Table of Contents will construct a customizable contents table listing all top-level headings that will update automatically as your document changes. (Word can also be configured to require manual updates – in which case be sure to right-click and "Update" before printing or distributing the document.)

Format your table of contents using the options under References → Table of Contents → Custom table of contents. Configure the dots connecting the headings to the page numbers with the "tab leader" option. Change the fonts and styles of each entry by clicking the "Modify" button (bottom left; ensure General → Formats: reads "From template"); "TOC1" styles the first-order entries. Alternatively, use Home → Styles → ↘ to configure individual entries.

Breaking up a document

Sometimes it is necessary or desirable to treat different pages of a document differently. Let's see how Word's "sections" feature can help us with different situations.

Pagination

Case study one: You wish to number pages in your preface using Roman numerals, with Arabic numerals starting from 1 for pages of your main report.

• Generate a few pages that will be your preface and main text with a suitable entry in the navigation pane.
• Key Ctrl + to insert a page break that moves following content onto a new page. Note how this is clearly displayed when paragraph marks are visible.
• Start a new section immediately before your main text begins
• Position the cursor at the end of the line before the start of your main text. From the Layout menu ribbon, select "Page Setup → Breaks → Section breaks → Next page".
• Select the page footer in the preface
• Double-click in the bottom inch of a page.
• Note: double-clicking in the space between pages will hide / show the header and footer regions.

• Insert a page number
• From the "Header & Footer" menu ribbon, select "Header & Footer" → "Page Number" → "Current position" → "Simple → Plain number"
• Format the page number as desired
• Right-click the newly inserted page number, and select "Format Page Number". Select the appropriate format.
• Notice the opportunities for chapter numbering, which follows the same principles.
• Select the page number for the next section, and modify the formatting as desired.
• Under the "Format Page Number" options, see "Page numbering" → "◉ Start at: 1".
• Notice the "Same as previous" option: headers and footers may contain different content from one section to the next.

Layout

Case study two: landscape pages

Wide figures or tables can be best displayed in landscape format. Set a subset of pages to landscape display using sections:

• Set up a page as a separate section
• Where you desire the landscape page, it's Layout → "Page Setup → Breaks → Section breaks → Next page", twice.
• With the caret between the section breaks, set the page layout to landscape
• From the Layout menu ribbon, select "Page Setup → Orientation → Landscape". You can have different margins and paper sizes between sections, too.

Exercise: references in columns

Add a section to the end of your document for references to appear in. Use a "continuous" section break so the references appear on the same page as the preceding text. Add some dummy references, and lay them out in two columns – whilst leaving the rest of the document in a single column.

• You should already be familiar with integrated reference formatting software such as Zotero (open source), EndNote and Mendeley.

Embedding figures

Word is not a desktop publishing package. To lay out professional documents, you need DTP software such as InDesign or Scribus; embedding figures is already stretching Word beyond its design brief. For this reason, it can be frustrating – but it's not impossible.

• Insert a figure from your device into your document
• "Insert" menu ribbon → "Pictures" → "Insert picture from this device"
• Notice the drop-down by the "Insert" button. Select "Link to file" and the document will be updated with the latest version of the image file on disk whenever it is opened, or manually updated using File → Info → Linked files. Linked images will not be visible when the document is opened on another computer – handy for embedded signatures, irritating for collaborative documents.
• Set the text wrapping to "Top and bottom"
• Right-click on the image; "Wrap text" → "Top and bottom"

Now let's get the image where we want it. Positioning the figure is as simple as dragging and dropping. But to avoid headaches down the line, we want to understand how the figure will move about as we add or delete text above it in the document.

• Add a line of recognizable text above and below the position that the figure should appear
• Position the anchor (⚓) of the image alongside the text that will appear above the image
• Check that File → Options → Display → ☑ Object anchors is checked.
• Drag the anchor (not the image) until it sits alongside the relevant paragraph
• Set the position of the picture
• Right-click the picture, select "Size and position", and from the "Position" tab set "☑ Lock anchor".

You can set positions relative to the page that the anchor occurs on, or the anchor paragraph. Note that strange behaviour can occur when your preference creates a paradox, e.g. the image should be on the top of the page that contains the anchor, but putting the image in that position would cause the anchor paragraph to move to the next page, which would change where the picture should appear…

I don't put much stock in Word's inbuilt captioning feature; rather, I define a "caption" style (Home menu ribbon → Styles → Create a style") and apply this to caption text. A large bottom margin and a distinct font face tends to make captions stand out as separate from the main text.

An alternative approach – less sophisticated, possibly more resilient – is to insert the image "in line with text". The image can then be set in a paragraph of its own. Image paragraphs can be assigned their own style (Alignment: Centred; Style for following paragraph: Caption; Keep with next: Yes) which will keep them with their caption and maintain a central alignment.

Document properties

Note that Word documents are automatically populated with properties, such as the author. If you are submitting an assignment anonymously, this is bad news. Check for and remove unexpected metadata with "File → Info → Check for Issues → Inspect document".

If you will share your document as a PDF (with File→Save As→PDF), then setting a "File → Info → Properties → Title" will set the title displayed when the PDF is opened in a web browser.