Word macros for displaying styles in the Styles pane

March 14, 2016 | Word macros for displaying styles in the Styles pane | 8315 hit(s)

This is another in a series of blog posts about how I configure Microsoft Word, which I add here primarily for my own reference.

I often use the Style pane, and within that pane, I often want to change the styles that are displayed. Sometimes I want to see all the styles; sometimes just the styles that are defined in the current document; sometimes just the styles currently in use.

You can change this display by using a dialog box. In the Styles pane, click the Options link, and then use the dropdown lists to select which styles to display and how they're ordered, like this:

But that can get to be an annoying number of clicks if you're switching between these display options frequently. So, macros to the rescue. I recorded myself making one of these changes, then created a couple of variations to give me the different displays I want. Here are the macros I currently use, where the sub name is (I hope) self-explanatory:

Sub SetStylesPaneToAllAlphabetical()
    ActiveDocument.FormattingShowFilter = wdShowFilterStylesAll
    ActiveDocument.StyleSortMethod = wdStyleSortByName
End Sub

Sub SetStylesPaneToInCurrentDocument()
    ActiveDocument.FormattingShowFilter = wdShowFilterStylesAvailable
    ActiveDocument.StyleSortMethod = wdStyleSortByName
End Sub

Sub SetStylesPaneToInUse()
    ActiveDocument.FormattingShowFilter = wdShowFilterStylesInUse
    ActiveDocument.StyleSortMethod = wdStyleSortByName
End Sub

To complete the picture, I map the macros to these keyboard shortcuts:

ctrl+shift+p,a — SetStylesPaneToAllAlphabetical
ctrl+shift+p,c – SetStylesPaneToInCurrentDocument
ctrl+shift+p,u — SetStylesPaneToInUse

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