Converting Explicit Character Formatting to Styled Formatting

Pauline has a document where someone has gone through and explicitly formatted different words and phrases as bold red text. She is looking for the easiest way to convert all these words and phrases to use a character style (BoldRed) instead of the explicit formatting.

The question that Pauline asks presumes two things. First, that there are instances in her document where text has been formatted as both bold and red. Second, that Pauline has created a character style called BoldRed that implements the same formatting. With those two things in mind, the following steps can be used to convert the explicit formatting to styled formatting:

1. Press Ctrl+H. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. Click the More button, if it is available.
3. Click the No Formatting button, if it is available.
4. Make sure the insertion point is within the Find What box.
5. Click the Format button and then click on Font. Word displays the Find Font dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Find Font dialog box.

6. In the Font Style list, click on Bold.
7. Using the Font Color drop-down list, choose red.
8. Click OK to close the Find Font dialog box. Your formatting specifications should appear just below the Find What box.
9. Put the insertion point within the Replace With box.
10. Click the Format button and then click on Style. Word displays the Replace Style dialog box. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Replace Style dialog box.

11. In the list of styles, find the BoldRed style and click on it once.
12. Click OK to close the Replace Style dialog box.
13. Click Replace All. Word lets you know how many replacements were made.
14. Close all the open dialog boxes.

If you are using Microsoft 365, there is another approach you can take:

1. Display the Styles pane. (Display the Home tab of the ribbon and click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Style Gallery.)
2. In your document, place the insertion point within one of the words already formatted with bold and red.
3. On the Home tab of the ribbon, in the Select group choose the Select All Text with Similar Formatting tool. Word selects all the text that uses that same format.
4. In the Styles pane, click the BoldRed style. It is applied to all the selected text.

Regardless of the approach you take, when you are done your bold and red text will be formatted using the BoldRed style.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13968) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365.