Oh yes. Using keyboard shortcuts with styles can make things WAY, WAY faster.
In fact, when I actually write, believe it or not, I do NO formatting whatsoever. I do not add that "extra" Enter between paragraphs. I just write text.
Then I skim and hit keyboard shortcuts. It took years of getting used to functioning like that, but IMO, that is exactly how Word is designed to be used. Most people format as they go. I never do.
Word, IMO, is designed to format
by styles once you have written the content. In other words, while I am writing content (the text) I pay ZERO attention to format. I pay attention to one thing...what I am writing. What it looks like is completely, and utterly, irrelevant at the time of writing the content. This is very strange, and counter-intuitive at first.
Later on, say a bunch of pages I know are to be "Body Text". Fine. I hold the Shift key and press PageDown, going through. Once I see the end of the chunk of BodyText, I lift my fingers (the chunk is now selected) and press Alt-BT, thus
making it BodyText.
Badda bing, badda boom. I just formatted 11 pages.
I run through the document, non-contiguously selecting the short paragraphs that will be my MyHeading1....then....Alt-1. Badda bing, badda boom. I just formatted 23 Headings.
I must admit I use a wee VBA to format my tables - standardized of course. The VBA runs through all the tables, bookmarking them so I can use real names for tables later on, making all text except the heading row MainTableText, the heading rows HeadingRowtext...yadda yadda.
But I call that with a simple Alt-TS (for Table Set). I press Alt-TS and.....badda bing, badda boom. All my tables are formatted the same way.
Styles and shortcuts...the way to go. OK......ONE way to go.
I use keys a lot as I just hate having to lift my hand over to the mouse unless I have to. I got carpal bad enough thank you. Mind you, switching to a graphics pen helped a lot.
faq219-2884
Gerry
My paintings and sculpture