How to reformat a Word document using the Design tab

Design tab of Microsoft Word will help you move beyond basic formatting habits and apply changes at scale, especially when you’re formatting long reports. Here it is How to use the Design tab to format documents in Word.

Function of the Design tab in Microsoft Word

The Design tab is located between the Home tab and the Layout tab on Word’s ribbon bar. The Home tab has its own formatting toolbar and Styles dialog box. But for those who want to create beautifully formatted documents, the Design tab is where the real work is done.

The Design tab controls the entire visual identity of your document with Themes, Style Sets, color palettes, and font pairs. Change any of them, and the change will apply throughout the entire document.

• Themes apply a harmonious set of fonts, colors, and effects to the entire document.
• Style Sets determine the look of the title and main text.
• The color palette changes all accent colors at once
• Pair the title font with the main text font into a matching set.

Here is an important rule to remember: Style Sets in the Design tab work by modifying existing styles. If your text is formatted manually (bold, font size and color are applied directly without using styles), then these Style Sets will have little or no discernible effect. Therefore, it is a complementary tool to Word’s type system. If you receive an unformatted document, take a moment to apply basic styles from Home > Styles.

Themes replace manual Word formatting

When you choose a topic or theme, Word will apply it immediately to titles, main text, and other elements. Instead of having to edit every detail of an image, let themes take care of the complicated work. It applies a pre-designed combination of fonts, colors, and visual effects, so titles, main text, tables, and shapes are all updated in sync.

At first glance, most built-in themes seem a bit dry and safe. Since everyone uses Microsoft Word, topics can look quite generic.

But themes are not necessarily the final destination. They can be like the first “coat of paint” on your document. After applying a theme, you can edit the Colors or Fonts options right next to it in the same tab to personalize it. You’ll get automation, saving you time in Word with customizable controls instead of having to do it yourself. Once you’re done editing, you can save your custom theme using the option Save Current Theme.

Style Sets clean up all text clutter

Style Sets are the most underrated tool in the Design tab. They apply built-in formatting rules to every type of paragraph in the document.

For example, Heading 1, Heading 2, body text, and captions are just a click away. This feature is very useful for collaborative documents when multiple people are involved in formatting. Just change one Style Set to recreate a consistent look.

But Style Sets only work if your document actually uses styles properly. If you bold a line and increase the font size to 18pt to create a Heading, Word will not recognize it as a heading. This is very common in collaborative projects.

Combine fonts and colors automatically

The Font option in the Design tab will automatically reassign the fonts for the title and body of the entire document to a unified font pair. The Colors option will apply the same settings to every color combination in the document. This helps speed up work because you’re working at the document level instead of having to edit individual words and sentences.

Combined fonts also eliminate the “multiple fonts in one document” happens when you copy content from different sources. Setting them up once at the document level is simply neater and faster than editing each paragraph later.

Note, tab Design have difficulty with directly formatted documents. For example, if you receive a document that is unformatted or the original author has manually changed the font, size, and color without using Styles. The Design tab can only control what has been formatted properly.