+Body and +Heading

[Daddy]

[Egads - Two questions from me in one day.]

What are the +Body and +Heading fonts that I see in Word 2010?

Daddy

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The font for many styles in Word (unless you change it to a specific font)
is defined as being either the Body font or the Heading font. This is
determined by the theme. If, instead of assigning a specific font to a
style, you choose Body or Heading, then if you apply a different theme that
uses different Body and Heading fonts, your styles will change
automatically. You still define the font size and other properties (Bold,
Italic) in the paragraph style, but the font itself can be variable. If you
want only specific fonts for the styles (and this would especially be true
in a template that used more than two fonts), then you can define them in
the template styles; they would then not change if you applied a different
theme (though some other elements, such as colors, might).

You can see how this works (with Live Preview) by selecting a document that
has both headings and body text in it and then hovering over the various
theme font sets in Home | Styles | Change Styles | Fonts.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Daddy]

The font for many styles in Word (unless you change it to a specific
font) is defined as being either the Body font or the Heading font. This
is determined by the theme. If, instead of assigning a specific font to
a style, you choose Body or Heading, then if you apply a different theme
that uses different Body and Heading fonts, your styles will change
automatically. You still define the font size and other properties
(Bold, Italic) in the paragraph style, but the font itself can be
variable. If you want only specific fonts for the styles (and this would
especially be true in a template that used more than two fonts), then
you can define them in the template styles; they would then not change
if you applied a different theme (though some other elements, such as
colors, might).

You can see how this works (with Live Preview) by selecting a document
that has both headings and body text in it and then hovering over the
various theme font sets in Home | Styles | Change Styles | Fonts.

Thanks very much for your help.

So, if I understood you, many or most fonts in Word fall into one of two
main categories: They are either 'body' fonts - that are used in the
main body of a document - or 'heading' fonts - that are used in the
headings of a document. Correct so far?

So if I choose the +Body font (for example), that means I'm choosing
whatever is considered to be the main body font for the particular style
set I have selected. I would choose +Body instead of specifying a
particular font (Arial, Calibri, etc.) for the body of my document. The
idea being that a style set will have consistent look and feel.

How am I doing so far?

What messes me up is that in versions of Word prior to 2007, Body Text
was the name of a font. I used to use Body Text for the body of my
documents, and by basing other fonts in my document on Body Text, I was
able to achieve a consistent look and feel.

So how does +Body relate to the old 'Body Text'. Does +Body replace Body
Text in Word 2007/2010?

(As an aside, Microsoft is famous for using confusingly similar
terminology, and Word 2007/2010 is a prize winner in that regard.)

Daddy

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The Body Text style still exists, along with all the others that are based
on it. As far as I can tell, the +Headings font is used for all the built-in
heading styles (1-9), plus Title and Subtitle and TOA Heading, and all the
rest of the styles are based on Normal (which uses +Body). I don't claim to
understand any of this, as I am just learning about it myself, and I'm not
convinced it is really helpful for the way I work, but I can see that, in
theory, it would be useful.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Daddy]

The Body Text style still exists, along with all the others that are
based on it. As far as I can tell, the +Headings font is used for all
the built-in heading styles (1-9), plus Title and Subtitle and TOA
Heading, and all the rest of the styles are based on Normal (which uses
+Body). I don't claim to understand any of this, as I am just learning
about it myself, and I'm not convinced it is really helpful for the way
I work, but I can see that, in theory, it would be useful.

Okay...I 'get it' now, after a little more research.

First: +Body is a /font/; Body Text is a /style/. Just like +Heading is
a /font/ and Heading1, Heading2, etc. are /styles/.

If you're into using document 'themes' in Word, +Body is the font used
for text that is marked as Body and +Headings is the font that is used
for text that is marked as Headings.

If you want to see which fonts will be the +Body font and the +Headings
font for any given theme, go to the Themes group in the Page Layout
ribbon and click on Theme Fonts (the icon with the 'A').

If you don't used/aren't interested in document themes, just ignore
+Body and +Headings.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Daddy

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Yes, I think you understand at least as much as I do now!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org