Character styles are unique in a few ways. First, they can be used in combination with paragraph styles. For another, their options are limited to font options, such as size, style, colour, and borders. Some examples of Word-created character styles are footnotes and hyperlinks.

To create a character style, click the New Style button in the Styles task pane. Then, in the New Style dialog box, choose Character for the Style Type.

You’ll notice that some options are now unavailable; this is because character styles are limited to text formatting.

Go through and set your options just like you would for a regular style. Click OK to save your style. It will appear with a lower-case underlined “a” in the styles task pane.

 

You can see from the sample above that paragraph icons now appear in the styles task pane; this will help you differentiate between the styles that are available.