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Course & Subject Guides

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Support Guide

Formatting Using Styles

The University of Pittsburgh ETD Word template has pre-set styles so that when they are applied to the various parts of your paper, it complies with the format guidelines.

For example, main chapter titles are supposed to be centered, bolded, on a new page with white space above and below. Applying the Heading 1 style to your chapter titles makes all these changes to your text in addition to linking it to the table of contents page. To apply styles you will first need to open the Styles Manager. 

  1. Press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+S to open the Styles Manager
  2. Once you can see the list of styles, you can start applying them to the appropriate parts of your paper. For instance, typing the title of the second chapter, highlighting it and clicking Heading 1.
  3. So how do you figure out which style to use for each part of your paper? You can click on the sample sections already included with the template to check their styles. Use the same style when creating more of those types of items. For your reference, here’s a list:
Style Name Description
Appendix Use for Appendix page Headings (labeled A)
App Section Use for Appendix second level sections (labeled A.1)
App Subsection Use for Appendix third level sections (labeled A.1.1)
Bibliography Entry Use for bibliography entries (If you are using custom citation formatting, please contact us for assistance)
Heading Use for Preface and Bibliography page headings
Heading 1 Use for main concepts or chapter headings (labeled 1.0)
Heading 2 Use for second level concept headings (labeled 1.1)
Heading 3 Use for third level concept headings (labeled 1.1.1)
Heading 4 Use for fourth level concept headings (labeled 1.1.1.1)
Heading 5 Use for firth level concept headings (labeled 1.1.1.1.1)
Normal Use for all regular body content
Preliminary Use for the titles: List of Figures, List of Tables, or any custom LIsts.

4. To remove a style, you place your cursor in the line with the style you wish to remove. Then use the Styles menu to select Normal. This will clear any heading or formatting styles that may change the text you enter beyond that point. You can then reapply the particular style you intended to use.

Importing Styles

If you started your draft in a non-template file,  you may be able to import the necessary styles into your ETD draft without having to copy and paste content from one document to another. If you didn't use any headings or captions in your draft document, this method may still work, but it might be slightly easier to copy and paste all your body text into a fresh template and work from there.

To import styles from a new ETD template:

  1. Download the template from etd.pitt.edu
  2. Open your draft document in the Word desktop app
  3. Open the Styles Pane
  4. Click the button for the Styles Manager which looks like a capital A with a green check beside it.
  5. Click on the Import/Export button in the bottom left of this window.
  6. Close the Normal.dotx file in the right column
  7. Click Open and navigate to the location in which your downloaded ETD Pitt template file is (ETD_Template_Pitt_v2.0.dotx)
  8. Now add any styles that are in need of an update or are missing from your draft. 
    1. If you want to add all of the styles, click on the first entry and scroll to the last entry. Then hold Shift and click the last entry.
    2. If you are repairing the styles into an existing draft from a Pitt template, you may want to hold Ctrl and de-select Normal.
  9. Now click the Copy button to add the styles to your template and overwrite the styles that match.
  10. You can now either apply the styles to Headings or add captions with the correct style parameters.