What is a "Linked Style" in MS Word 2007

[bjoeran1]

When I place the cursor on a style in the Style window (Alt + Ctrl + Shift +
S) I see the following description under heading "Style":

Style Linked, Quick Style, Based on: Normal, Following Style: Normal

In addition the character shown to the right of the Style name shows a
carrier return character and a small letter "a".

1. What does it mean that the style is linked?
2. What does the different characters mean next to each style in the Style
Window

 

[grammatim]

2. Paragraph mark means it's a paragraph style, letter-a means it's a
character style.

 

[Jay Freedman]

When I place the cursor on a style in the Style window (Alt + Ctrl + Shift +
S) I see the following description under heading "Style":

Style Linked, Quick Style, Based on: Normal, Following Style: Normal

In addition the character shown to the right of the Style name shows a
carrier return character and a small letter "a".

1. What does it mean that the style is linked?
2. What does the different characters mean next to each style in the Style
Window

A linked style is one that can be applied as a paragraph style (if you select an
entire paragraph before applying it) or as a character style (if you select less
than a paragraph). The paragraph-mark-and-character symbol is supposed to remind
you of the dual nature.

Look at
http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_off...d-the-curtain-styles-order-of-operations.aspx
just below the heading "Six Types of Styles".

 

[Stefan Blom]

To briefly answer your first question: Word 2002 introduced the ability to
"paint" part of a paragraph with a heading style so that you could include
only that part in the table of contents. In other words, the concept of a
paragraph style changed in that Word version. Word 2007 introduced a name
for this new type of style: the linked style. Word 2007 also re-introduced
the older type of paragraph style that couldn't be used as a linked
style--and that style is called paragraph style.

For more information on Word styles, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/TipsOnStyles.html. You may also want
to take a look at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP051895631033.aspx?pid=CH060830091033
("About formatting text by using styles").