Share via

Style changes unexpectedly when I press Enter in Microsoft Word

Anonymous
2018-12-02T20:47:02+00:00

In my document, as I type and press enter, most of the times, all that happens is that I receive a new line.  The font and styles remain unaltered.

However, sometimes, I have no idea why, the style will change (in this case, to the Normal Style) which has a different font and font size. 

Can anyone please explain why this happens and how can I control this random style change while I am typing?

Thank you.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous
2018-12-02T20:55:27+00:00

Hi, I hope you're doing good today.

Try this.

Hit.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S

You will see a new Windows with Styles, select the style that you have before hitting Enter, make a right click and select modify.

Make sure that the option that says "Style for the following paragraph" is the same style that you have before hitting Enter.

Regards.

Was this answer helpful?

50+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Charles Kenyon 167.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2018-12-02T22:11:59+00:00

Many styles have a setting for the style for the next paragraph. For many of the built-in styles this style is the normal style. You can modify this setting.

Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word

Pressing Enter gives you a new paragraph in Word, not a new line.

2.1 Why you should not press Enter at the end of every line

Was this answer helpful?

5 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

2 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2018-12-02T22:42:29+00:00

    Thank you everyone who has answered, and in particular to Pedro and Charles.

    Your solution worked!  I also observed that the reason it was doing this was because my paragraph had Header 4 applied.  I am guessing that: as this is a style intended for headers, the "Style for the following paragraph" would have been set to Normal by default.  I have reapplied a meaningful style to my text and eliminated the behaviour.

    @Charles Kenyon: 

    I come from a Word Perfect for DOS background.  After that I had been using Lotus Ami Pro for Windows 3.11.  I was really comfortable with those word processors and as far as I remember, they never employed the concept of using paragraph styles. 

    I have also been using MS Word for 20 years but but for some reason, I could never master this application (Excel, Access, Powerpoint -never had any issues and they are meant to be more complex).  With Word, I kept encountering frequent inexplicable behaviours (like this one) which I could never figure out.  So for this reason, I really appreciate the links you have provided.  Thank you!

    Was this answer helpful?

    5 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2018-12-02T20:55:56+00:00

    Window*

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments