You can also dissect a specific portion of text and reveal its formatting. This can be useful if you’re looking at two similar portions of text and you can’t figure out how they are different, or if you want to create a brand new style.

To reveal formatting, click the Format menu and click Reveal Formatting, or use the Shift + F1 shortcut. You’ll see this task pane on the right hand side:

 Word will take the text around your cursor and dissect it by font, paragraph, bullets and numbering, and other key style elements. You can click the plus or minus signs next to these elements to expand or shrink the lists. You can also click the blue links to open the related dialog box.

To compare two parts of your text, select the first part of text. Then, check the Compare to Another Selection box at the top of the format list. Next, select the second part of the text (don’t hold the Ctrl key). You can see a sample task pane on the right. At the top of the formatting list, you can see the two types of text just as they appear in the document. Then you can see a list of formatting differences. You can still click on the links to go to the specific dialog box and apply changes, or you can expand and shrink sections of the list using the plus or minus buttons.
 

Once you’re done comparing, you can uncheck the Compare to Another Selection box to just see the first text’s formatting.

There are two options at the bottom of the task pane. The first, Distinguish Style Source, will show you the style in the Reveal Formatting task pane. The next, Show all formatting marks, will display formatting marks in your document.

Once you’re done with the Reveal Formatting task pane, you can close it by clicking the X in its top right hand corner.