Dear colleagues, please, consult me a bit. I want to use following workflow: for example, take text from one source and color it, lets say, blue. Then I want to keep editing this text, adding something from my own words, coloring it black (for example). I want default color I'm typing with to be black even when I'm typing among blue words. I need this to distinguish "mine" words from "borrowed" words visually. How can I tune Word this way?





I understand how to deal with this using "reviewing", but it is not the way I prefer here. Is there another way? Just strictly switch to black and forget about local text coloring.


I can use highlighting instead of the font color, this would be also ok.

You cannot simply keep typing. Word continues formatting.
What you are seeing as black is probably "Automatic" which is a good thing.
When you want to start typing in the underlying color for the paragraph style (Automatic), press Ctrl+Spacebar to remove direct formatting.

I would advise you to create a character style for your blue text rather than simply applying the color. You can attach a keyboard shortcut to your style if you want. This way, if you want to in the future change all of your blue text to red, you can just change the style definition to red.

• Importance of Styles in Word
• Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Word 2007-2021 (365)
• For keyboard shortcuts instructions, take a look at Assign Keyboard Shortcuts by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP. It has more for the menu versions of Word.

Many thanks! I didn't know about this shortcut. Great tip!


Can I change "automatic" from black to blue somehow?

No, I do not think so but will look into it. Automatic is Black when on a light background and White when on a dark background. It is possible that changing the Theme colors will do this, but I am unsure.

[Quick] Style Sets and Word Themes in Microsoft Word


Oops! I do not know that this can be changed in Word 2003 because Theme Colors started with Word 2007, I believe.

You can change your underlying style(s) to blue, though.
Importance of Styles in Word

If you are using Word 2003, I recommend downloading the original Legal Users Guide to Microsoft Office from my website. As far as I know it is the only Microsoft-published manual on using some of the features in the menu versions of Word. It is in the form of Word documents.
Original Legal Users Guide to Microsoft Word 2002 This is a zip folder.

Not for 2003, but hopefully some guidance where things may be similar in the versions.
In the current MS365 version, you get a waffle of the Color Theme Pallet which describes each color as an Accent Color lighter or darker with the base color at the top. If in 2003 hovering over a color does not show a name including "Accent" , "Text" or "Background" then Color Themes should not exist in that version.
If a user wanted to fix the color, the very bottom row shows basic colors not associated with the Color Theme, or choose to pick a custom color.

Thank you for response, but I do not get how this is related to my question. Ok, let's not stick to 2003. Is there ANY version on Word, in which I can start typing with black color withing blue text, without any special additional actions (except switching something once)? Blue text will be prepared once and will remain constant for this project. I just need to see visually its concentration and spread.

Switching once?

• Once per paragraph?

Sort of. Use a Character Style. Apply either Black or Automatic as the color in that style. You can attach that to a keyboard shortcut. To turn it off, Ctrl+Spacebar reverts to underlying paragraph font settings.

• Once per Word session?

Nope.

If you were using a word or phrase always at the beginning of the line, this could be done combining a multi-level list and a style. See: this thread: Nested Styles in Word. The word or phrase becomes part of that style in that document.