Replacing Styles in Microsoft Word

Styles help us define and maintain a standard look for the document content. Sometimes, we may want to reformat the document by replacing some of the styles with an alternate style.

For example, we may want to replace the formatting of all titles that use the style Heading 2 to use the style Heading 1.

There are two ways to replace one style with another, using the:

1. Styles pane
2. Find and Replace option

Let us take a look at both ways now.

Example:
We are assuming that we will change the style of all titles formatted with the style Heading 2 to the style Heading 1.

Replacing Styles Using the Style Pane

Using the Styles pane is perhaps the easiest way to replace one style with another.

1. Open the document in which you to replace the styles.
2. To select all text formatted with the style Heading 2:
   1. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click on the dialog box launcher.
      
   2. In the Styles pane, right-click Heading 2 and select Select All.
      
      All titles that are formatted with the style Heading 2 are selected.

      

3. To use style Heading 1 to format the selected titles:
   • In the Styles pane, click Heading 1. 
     All the titles are now formatted with Heading 1.

     

Replacing Styles Using Find and Replace

Once again we will assume that we are replacing the style Heading 2 with Heading 1.

1. Open the document in which you want to replace styles.
2. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Replace.
   
3. In the Find and Replace dialog box, click in the Find box.
4. Ensure that there is no content typed in the Find box.
5. Click More.
6. Under Replace at the bottom of the bottom of the dialog box, click Format.
7. In the menu displayed, click Style.
   
8. In the Find Style dialog box,  from the Find what style list, select Heading 2. 
   
9. Click OK. The style name Heading 2 is displayed just under the Find what box.
10. Similarly, in the Find and Replace dialog box, click in the Replace with box.
11. Select style Heading 1 by repeating the actions in steps 6 to 9. The style name Heading 2 is displayed just under the Find what box.
    
12. Click Replace All. The style Heading 2 is replaced with style Heading 1. 
13. On the confirmation message, click OK. 
14. In the Find and Replace dialog box, click Close.