When you’re going back through and editing your document, you can click on text for its style to be displayed in the style list (on the formatting menu) or in the task pane (If you have it open). If you find this too confusing or too time-consuming, there is another way to display styles in your document.

First, make sure you are in Normal view. (We can switch to this view from the View menu.) Then, click the Tools menu and click Options. You should be on the View tab by default; if you’re not, click that tab.

In this section, look at the bottom set of options. There should be a text box titled Style area width. In that text box, enter how big you want the style area to be. Then, click OK.

Once you return to your document, you will see a pane on the left hand side. This pane will list the paragraph style for each paragraph. (If multiple styles are in use, it will pick the one used by most of the text.) Other types of styles, such as character styles, will not be listed.

Here’s an example:

You can see that the title’s style is reflected in the style area on the left. The style for the first paragraph is normal. The second paragraph’s style is normal as well; even though its first line is using a different style, the majority of the text in that paragraph is using the sample style. The third paragraph’s (#3 in the list) style is listed as the sample style, however, because the majority of its text is using that style.

To remove the style area, you can switch to another view. Or, to remove it from the normal view as well, click the Tools menu and click Options. In the View tab, enter 0 for the Style area width. Click OK and the style area will be gone! You can, of course, turn it back on by entering a number back into the Style area width box.