There may be times when you want to reveal the formatting used for some text. You can do this in Word by clicking the Format menu and selecting Reveal Formatting. The Reveal Formatting pane will appear where you can change the formatting on any text, determine the formatting source by clicking Distinguish style source, show formatting marks, and format a text selection like the test that surrounds it.

You can also compare the formatting of two different text selections from the Reveal Formatting pane. To do this, you must select the first instance of formatting that you want to compare. Place a check beside the option to Compare to another selection and then select the second instance of formatting. Any differences between the two text selections will be described under the Formatting differences heading.

Once you’ve compared the two text selections, you can then format the second selection that same way as the first. Simply click the arrow beside the second box under Selected text and click Apply formatting of Original Selection.