What’s on the iPod: Woodpile by Frightened Rabbit


A sad day here in our house — our goldfish died. Why such a fuss over a fish? Because he was 14 years old. Yes, they live that long and no, by that age they’re no longer “gold” but more whitish. He hadn’t been “perky” for a month. I suspect when we changed the water yesterday, it was simply too much for him. RIP, Ghillie MacBean.

They also grow into their environment. Fishy started in one of those tiny little bowls, but ended in a 30-gallon tank, which I drained this morning. That meant my work day started a bit later, and this blog post even later still.

Since I had the bulk of my projects in the first two weeks of this month, I decided to spend time getting to know my software a bit better. While I use quite a bit of the functionality built into Word, there’s always something new to learn. Let’s start with how to use styles.

Styles are a great way to add value to your freelance writer / client relationship. A freelancer who can deliver a document that looks ready to go to print is an asset.

I’m going a little from memory here since the project I used to do a lot of formatting for has gone in-house. Still, knowing how to format your text to make it fit can give you a huge advantage when the client wants a few different fonts, font sizes, margins and columns in the same document.

For this project, let’s assume a college course catalog.

In order to create a table of contents (TOC), it’s best to get used to using Styles.When you assign styles in your document, you make creation of a TOC infinitely easier (think one click instead of hours of manual building). Styles are those little areas on your Word program’s Home tab (if you’re using 2010 and above). They’re right there under Styles (easy, right?). Here’s what you need to know before you set your styles:

• How many levels of head/subheads you’ll need
• How you’d like to differentiate each of those levels
• What font you’ll use for each/all

Academic Policies

Graduate Student Policies

Please
note that unless indicated below, graduate students are bound by the policies
and practices that apply to all students, especially as noted elsewhere
in this catalog.

Full-time Status

Graduate students are considered
full time if enrolled in at least nine credits per semester, with the exception
of students enrolled in the MFA Studio Art program who are considered full
time if enrolled in at least 4.5 credits during the fall and spring semesters
as per their program requirements. Tuition for part-time graduate students is
charged on a per-credit basis.

Student
Classification and Course Load

A student’s class status is
determined by the number of credits earned, regardless of the number of
semesters of enrollment or the student’s standing in his or her major program.
Class status is a factor in determining financial aid eligibility and is one
indicator of academic progress. Class standing is also used to prioritize
scheduling during registration.

What you see here are the four different levels beyond the book title. So how to set each one:

Select the heading you want to work with. Go to the Styles tab and click on the corresponding level. Here, we’re working with Heading 1.

To format, right click on the Heading 1 option. From the drop-down menu, choose Modify.

In the next field, you can choose to rename your style, choose your font size, type and other attributes, and even adjust your spacing between paragraphs. Use this window to choose alignment of your text, too.

Also, make sure to click the button on the bottom right that says “Add to the Styles gallery.” This makes it easy for you to use the button each time you want that particular heading style. And it makes it easier when you’re building your table of contents later. 

You can format right from this window, as well:

Now save your changes by clicking “Ok. “

To create subhead styles, repeat the process. A note: Make sure to differentiate enough between styles so as not to confuse the reader.

Next week, we’ll show you how to use those Styles to create your Table of Contents.

Writers, how often do you use Styles?

Have you had to set various styles, or do you go with the default?