A step-by-step guide to formatting long documents so they stay consistent and are easy to update. It covers styles, headings, automatic tables of contents, page layout, and reusable templates in Microsoft Word and Google Docs, with practice documents for every exercise.
What the guide covers
Styles
Applying the built-in paragraph styles, changing a style once so every matching paragraph updates, creating your own styles, and why formatting text by hand causes problems later.
Headings and structure
Using heading levels to give a document a clear outline, moving through a long document by its headings, and keeping numbering consistent.
Automatic tables of contents
Inserting a table of contents built from your headings, choosing how many levels it shows, and updating it after you edit.
Page layout
Margins, orientation, page breaks and section breaks, headers and footers, and page numbers that start where you want them to.
Reusable templates
Saving a finished layout as a template and starting new documents from it so every report or letter begins with the same structure.
Word and Google Docs side by side
Where a step works differently in the two programs, the guide shows both versions.
Inside the guide
Every chapter follows the same pattern: the skill is explained, broken into steps, practiced in an exercise, and checked against a worked solution. These illustrations show the three kinds of page you will find in the PDF.
Illustrations represent the layout of guide pages. They are not reproductions of any software's interface.
What's in the .zip
Your .zip download
- PDF guideEach skill explained, then broken into numbered steps.
- Step-by-step instructions
- Annotated illustrations
- Practice exercises
- Worked solutionsEvery step, not only the final answer.
- Practice documentsUnformatted drafts and partly formatted documents for each exercise, made to open in either Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
The software is not included. See Software required below.
Software required
This guide is written for Microsoft Word and Google Docs. You can follow it with either one. Neither program is included with the guide; you need your own access to the one you choose, obtained separately from its maker.
About software updates. Software makers update their programs, so menus and button locations can change between versions. When an update changes the steps, the guide is revised, and updated files are free to anyone who bought this guide.
How the guide works
This is a self-study guide. You read each step, carry it out in your own copy of the software, then do the exercises and compare your work with the worked solutions. There is no video, no live instruction, no tutoring, and no feedback on your work. Everything you get is in the .zip.
Is this guide a good fit?
Who it's for
- You write reports, handbooks, manuals, or other long documents.
- You format headings by hand with bold text and font sizes, and spend time fixing them.
- You want documents that look consistent from the first page to the last.
Who it isn't for
- You need desktop publishing or print layout. That is not covered.
- You need mail merge, macros, or tracked changes. Those are not covered.
- You want video lessons, live help, or someone to review your work.