Using Styles Versus Direct Formatting
Direct formatting
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You must touch each and every word, paragraph or page individually.
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To each of these you must then manually apply font and paragraph formatting.
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Takes a lot of time.
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Hard to be consistent.
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If you change your mind on format you must repeat the process.
Styles
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Time saver: You can format one word or paragraph as you want and then copy that formatting to other words or paragraphs.
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Consistent: applying a style to a word or paragraph ensures it is formatted exactly the same as others of its type or style.
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Saves effort: When you change a style, you change all text or words and paragraphs associated with that type or style.
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You can use MS Word's Index and Tables feature to automatically generate your Table of Contents and Lists of Figures and Tables.
The UI Thesis Template.dot already has most of the styles you need defined. You only need to read our document, attach the template and apply the styles.*
* The template will NOT be 100% correct for anyone. Due to limitations in MS Word some changes will have to be done manually.
More about Styles: Tips for Understanding Styles in Word
