The default ‘Body Text’ style in Word needs some changes to suit your needs. Here’s some suggestions for things to alter or check to make sure they suit your, er, style.
Can’t see a Body Text style? See Make Body Text style appear in Microsoft Word
Body Text style can be different
The default Body Text style in a Blank Document / normal.dotm might be different on your computer. It depends on the version of Office, Windows or Mac, changes made previously and, perhaps, your horoscope.
Word 365/2019 for Windows
This is the current Word 2019/365 for Windows default Body Text style, at least on our test machines.
Word 365 for Mac
Word 365 for Mac has Body Text style also with the style is based on Normal, instead of (no style). There are other differences like Line Spacing is Single.
Your mileage may vary a little, but not much
Your ‘Body Text’ style may be different but the settings and options will be the same (or almost the same). This is an area which has not changed much for many versions of Office/Word.
Change ‘Style Based on’
The main reason you use ‘Body Text’ instead of ‘Normal’ for most paragraphs is to avoid any inheritance problems if you change the main paragraph settings. Microsoft knows this, but still the ‘Body Text’ style is based on Normal.
This is important and the first thing we’ll change. Switching to ‘(no style)’ reveals all the style settings as listed below. ‘(no style)’ means that the settings from ‘Normal’ are copied into ‘Body Text’ (copied not linked) to make a standalone style which inherits no settings from any other style.
Body Text default settings
Here are the default settings as seen above for Word 365/2019/2021 for Windows. The listing in the Word dialog isn’t entirely clear with some strange wrapping (e.g. Space … After ).
Linked style – it can apply to both a paragraph and characters.
Style based on: (no style).
Style for following paragraph: pressing Enter to end a paragraph in this style, the next paragraph will be: Body Text.
- Font: (Default) +Body (Calibri)
- (Justification) Left
- Line spacing: Multiple 1.08 li,
- Space After: 6 pt
- Widow/Orphan control,
- Style: Linked
- Hide until used
- Priority 100 (order in styles list)
Add to Style Gallery: No
Changes to the document formatting do NOT change the style (‘Automatically update’ is OFF)
Any style changes only apply to the current document (not ‘New documents based on this template’ i.e. change the style settings in the template).
Body Text settings to check or change
The Body Text style settings may be different on your computer. Here’s some settings to check or change to suit you. All these settings are available from Modify Style, mostly via the ‘Format’ list.
The basic settings like Font, Justification,Line Spacing, Space before/after, Indents are on the Modify Style box with a very simple preview:
Style based on
We’ve already mention this. Change ‘Style based on ..’ to (no style) which makes Body Text standalone from any other style changes.
Font
Choose another font, suggestions for body text include Times New Roman, Garamond or Georgia.
Justification
The default is Left justification which is the standard for document drafts.
Change to Justify whenever you like, most commonly for the final stages before publication.
Line Spacing
Increase the line spacing for drafts, especially printed drafts or using digital ink markup.
Switching to, say, 1.5 or double spacing gives you more ‘scribble’ room.
For the final release, change Line Spacing to single line spacing or similar.
Language
Make sure the Language setting is correct because it effects the spell and grammar checking done by Word.
There are often language variants like English (Canada) or English (UK) to choose instead of English (US) which appears as the default all over the world.
It’s a similar story in French, Spanish and other languages.
For multi-lingual documents, you could have extra styles linked to ‘Body Text’ with only a language change e.g. ‘Body Text – Finnish’ ‘Body Text – German’ etc. That will ensure the correct spell and grammar checks are applied. Modern Word has automatic language detection, but many users find it’s more reliable to specify the language.
Use the ‘Do not check spelling or grammar’ choice for computer code, quotations or other text that doesn’t need spell/grammar checks. Make a linked style ‘Body Text – no proofing’.
Quick Style Gallery
Do you want the style to appear in the Styles Gallery (i.e on the ribbon)?
Add to Styles Gallery on Modify Styles will do that.
Word for Mac has the same option except it’s called a ‘Quick Style List’.
Shortcut key
The quickest way to apply a style is a shortcut key. See Add a Fast keyboard shortcut for any Word style and Shortcuts for Word heading styles.
For Body Text we use Ctrl + Alt + ` because the third keypress is immediately to the left on the of the Heading 1 shortcut (Ctrl + Alt + 1). An alternative could be Ctrl + Alt + 0 at the right side of the keyboard number row.
Another choice is Ctrl + Alt + N which will override the default shortcut for Normal style.
This document or the template?
Are these style changes for the current document only or all documents based on the current template?
Make that choice from:
- Only in this document
- New documents based on this template
See Make Body Text style appear in Microsoft Word
Why choose Body Text vs Normal in Word
