All my documents are direct formatted, so I thought I would try and change them over to Styles. Since each Header for example May be a different style based on Font, Font Size, Bold, Bold Italics, Underlined, or any combination thereof, I'm curious what kind of Naming Schema people are using. Header 1, Header 2, and Header 3, doesn't tell you much.
-- OR --


Is it better to just settle on three or four (headings for example) and use those as a Standard throughout the document.
Even going that direction one needs a Naming Schema.

I would use the existing list of Styles and update.
Word has many Style Sets which are found under the Themes.
You can Modify a style based on selected Text or you can Modify the Style through "Style command".
Keep in mind that many Styles may be linked to others. The Normal Style is the base for most.

To Edit a Style, from Page 193 of MS Word Manual for V6:
To modify the formats of a style by using the Style command
From the Format menu, choose Style.
In the Styles box, select the style you want to modify.
If the style you want to modify is not listed in the Styles box, select another category of styles in the List box.
Choose the Modify button.
In the Modify Style dialog box, choose the Format button and modify the style's format.
If you want to use the modified style in new documents, select the Add To Template check box. Word adds the modified style to the template attached to the active document. The modified style will be available in all new documents you base on that template.

Choose the OK button to redefine the style.

Repeat steps 2 through 5 to modify additional styles. Then choose the Close button to close the Style dialog box.

See Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word and (shorter) Tips for Understanding Styles in Word by Shauna Kelly.
See also: Why use Microsoft Word’s built-in heading styles? by Shauna Kelly

The basic idea is to set up a few styles for the body of your document and use the built-in heading styles (modified to look the way you want). Any formatting of things less than a paragraph, can be done using character styles. Word has two built-in character styles that can be useful: Strong and Emphasis. My preference is to use the Body Text style rather than the Normal style for my body text.
See: Basic concepts of Microsoft Word: An introduction by Shauna Kelly, MVP

For working with Word 97 you may want to download the original Legal Users Guide to Microsoft Word from my website. That is Word documents produced by Microsoft on a number of topics. It was developed for Word 2000/2002 but there are not that many differences from Word 97. My Usersguide website is based on that with many updates and extensive supplementation. You can read the Introduction before downloading if you want.

Just a note: What is the difference between headings and headers?

It matters when you are searching for answers.

spillerbd and Mr. Kenyon:


Thanks for responding and the links. I'm gradually climbing the learning curve.
With your posts, I'm hoping it will be an easy fix to change all 25 pages (8 attachments).


RE:

I get it. Be glad to go back and Edit accordingly, but don't think the forum will let me edit SOLVED posts

You can use find and replace to search for certain fonts with bold, etc and replace with styles. To do this, click on More in the Replace dialog.
How to Find and Replace Formatting in Microsoft Word