Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Intelligently Starting a New Paragraph.

Intelligently Starting a New Paragraph

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 16, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

If you use styles in your documents, there is a very powerful feature you can use. The Next Style feature is defined when you set up a style and indicate what Word should use as the style following this one.

For instance, let's assume you have two styles defined as: Figure and Caption. The Figure style is used for figures in your document and it is always followed by the Caption style, which is used for the figure caption. You can set the Next Style for the Figure style so that when you press Enter, Word automatically makes the next paragraph a Caption style.

Display the Home tab of the ribbon and then click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Styles group. Word displays the Styles task pane.
In the list of styles shown, hover the mouse pointer over the name of the style you want to change. A drop-down arrow should appear at the right side of the style name.
Click the drop-down arrow and choose Modify. Word displays the Modify Style dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Modify Style dialog box.

In the Style For Following Paragraph drop-down list, select an existing style that you want to follow this style. In the above example, this would be the Caption style.
Click on OK.
When you are done, close the Styles task pane if desired.

When modifying a style, you may want to select the radio button called New Documents Based On This Template. This saves the changes you are making in the template file for use in other documents.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7724) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Intelligently Starting a New Paragraph.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Counting within Criteria

You can use the COUNTIF function to determine how many cells in a range fit your criteria. One criterion is easy; using ...

Discover More

Calculating a Group Retirement Date

Calculating a retirement date can be as simple as doing some date math to see when a person reaches a certain age. ...

Discover More

Copying Found Items to a New Document

Word allows you to use its searching capabilities to easily find multiple items in a document. What if you want to copy ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Getting Rid of Modify Style Message

When you apply styles to a paragraph, you may periodically see a message asking if you want to reapply the style or ...

Discover More

Preserving Style Formatting when Combining Documents

Insert one document into another and you may not get the results you expect. Here's why, along with what you can do about it.

Discover More

Moving All Headings Down One Level

Do you want to demote all the headings in your document by one level? There are some great tools built into the program ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 4 + 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.