Practice Activity—The Normal Style Template

Depending on how you generally open Word, you may or may not be conscious of the fact that you are choosing a new document based upon a document template. Go to the Start button of your computer. Go to New Office Document on the Start Menu list.

The New Office Document gallery offers a large number of templates that Microsoft Word provides for users to access in order to make the publication of documents simple. Click through the tabs and look at the range of templates available. Look at the icons. Note that some templates link to the Microsoft Word application, some to Access, some to PowerPoint, etc. Under the General Tab is a document choice for Word called Blank Document. This is Normal.dot or the Normal Document Template. Open that Template.

In the Word document window, go to Format on the Toolbar and Choose Style.
A Dialog Box will open. This is the doorway to the world of Styles. Get to know this window.

Under the word List is a drop down box. The choice you see is called Styles in use. These are the styles that are currently being used in the document that is open. Depress the drop down arrow and choose All Styles. This reveals all of the styles that are available in Normal.dot (the normal template).

Take a few minutes and click down through the various styles listed and read the style descriptions in the gray box to the right.