I managed to create a few styles in the formatting and styles pane, and I could apply these to captions and footnotes, but I'm not finding anything addressing captions and footnotes directly (i.e. so that it would automatically apply the style while creating the caption/footnote).

You can modify the styles that Word automatically applies to captions and footnotes. In the Styles and Formatting pane, right-click the Caption style and click Modify. Choose the font and other settings that you want. If you want to transfer the settings to your template, use the "Add to template" option before clicking OK in the Modify Style dialog. Repeat this for the Footnote Text style.

For assistance with displaying the styles in the Styles and Formatting pane, see the Big Idea 1 section at http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/sfpane.html.

Thanks Stefan,

I must be a little slow at this; I'm still having trouble doing exactly what I want. I'm able to go into the styles listed and modify them, but what I'm really looking for is a way to select all captions in my document and apply a single style to them. I can setup that style by creating one or (now that you've shown me) modifying a pre-existing one. Now how do I apply it to all captions.

Thanks

Well, Word applies the Caption style to a caption as you create it. When you modify that style, the modifications should reflect on the formatting of existing captions as well.

The exception is if you have applied direct formatting (for example via the buttons on the Formatting toolbar) to your captions. You would then have to select the captions and press Ctrl+Q (resets paragraph formatting to that of the underlying style) and Ctrl+SpaceBar (resets font formatting to that of the underlying style).

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Hmm... so there's no simple way of selecting all captions in one go, eh? I know each style in the S&F pane has the option of selecting all captions with style x in the drop-down menu of each style, but I've got more than one style of caption throughout my document.

Your ability to apply a style to every caption in a document depends on whether or not the existing captions are all of a differentiated style. If, for example, they were all just typed in without a style selected, they will be Normal, as is, presumably, the rest of your document, in which case you have no way of selecting them unless each starts with the word Figure or similar. Depending on other factors in your document, that could possibly allow you to apply a macro that that would select just those sentences and apply the style your want.

However, if your captions are all some style that only the captions have, no matter what it is, you can use Find and Replace to replace a style. Instead of entering text into the Find and Replace fields, use the Moe drop-down in the Find and Replace dialogue box, select Format, and then Style. Select the existing style for Find and the one you want for Replace, and press Replace All.

Best,
Ulodesk

Indeed, Find & replace is usually helpful; you can find formatting and replace with a style name. Or you can find a style and replace with another style.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional