ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II
1 INTRODUCTION 4
2 CREATING THE REPORT TEMPLATE 5
2.1 PAGE SETUP 5
2.2 SETTING FONT STYLES 6
2.3 SETTING HEADING STYLES 9
2.4 SECTION BREAKS 12
2.5 APPLYING HEADINGS AND SUB HEADINGS 13
3 CONTENTS PAGE 14
3.1 UPDATING THE CONTENTS PAGE. 16
4 PAGE NUMBERING 17
5 TITLE PAGE 18
5.1 PAGE BORDERS 20
APPENDIX A: DISSERTATION REPORT TITLE PAGE 21
APPENDIX B: ASSIGNMENT TITLE PAGE 23

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1 INTRODUCTION

Producing reports that adhere to professional standards is an essential skill

that you will be called upon to use throughout your studies. You will be
required to produce reports for assessments and for your dissertation. Also,
as a Professional working in industry you will almost certainly be called upon
to produce written reports.
In this booklet you will be shown how to use Microsoft Word’s formatting tools
to create a master document which you can use for the production of all
reports. By using the recommended format, layout etc. within this document
you will develop and improve upon the skills required to produce professionally
formatted reports.
You are now going to create a document into which you will eventually place
this text.

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2 CREATING THE REPORT TEMPLATE

To begin, open a new Word Document. Once you have done this, save it to
your U: drive, within the previously created folder MasterReport, as
ReportTemplate save this file as a Word 97-2003 document. Subsequently,
when you need to produce any report, all you will need to do is open this
document, save it under another name and then you can amend any
headings, sub-headings etc. as you wish.

When opening a new word document you are opening a template in which the
margins are set to: Left 2.54 cm, Right 2.54 cm and the Font Style is set to
Normal. By default the font for Normal is set to be Times New Roman, Size
12pt with Single Line spacing. However, as this is not the style required for
formal reports, you need to amend the document to the School of Computing
standard.

2.1 PAGE SETUP

The first thing you need to do is set up the
margins of the page.

1. To do this select the Page Layout tab,

then select the Margins option. From
the menu select Custom Margins.

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 2. The Page Setup window will appear.

3. Set the document margins as follows:

 Left hand side: 3.75 cm
 Right hand side: 2.5 cm
 Top (Header): 2.5 cm
 Bottom (Footer): 2.5 cm

As you can see, other options are available,

but more about this later.

4. Click OK.

2.2 SETTING FONT STYLES

We now need to deal with the font settings you are required to use for text
within formal reports. This requirement is Arial, Size 12pt with 1.5 Line
Spacing.
1. Select the Home tab then in the Styles section, select the style for
Normal then click on the expand arrow under the Change Styles
option.

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2. From the list of available style options
move your mouse over the option for
Normal and click on the expand arrow,
then select Modify

3. The Modify Style dialogue

box will appear. Delete the
style name Normal and
replace it with the name,
BodyText.

4. Ensure the box titled Style

for following paragraph is
set to Normal.

5. Check that the Add to Quick

Style and Only in this
document options are
checked.

6. Select the button titled Format then select Font from its drop down
menu - the Font dialogue box will now open. Apply the following font
settings:

Font = Ask your supervisor what font is used?

Font Style = Regular
Font Size = 12pt

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7. Select OK to close the Font dialogue box then OK to exit the Modify
dialogue box. You should now see the BodyText Style in the Styles
section on the Ribbon

8. From the Styles list, move your cursor over the BodyText option and
click on the expand arrow, then select Modify. On the Modify Dialogue
box select Format but this time select Paragraph - the Paragraph
dialogue box will then appear. Select the Indents and Spacing tab
then within the Spacing section apply the following settings:

Line Spacing = 1.5 lines

9. Make sure Spacing: Before and after

are set to 0

10. Select OK to close the Paragraph

dialogue box then OK to exit the
Modify dialogue box.

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2.3 SETTING HEADING STYLES
The next thing you need to do is format the settings required for the headings
and sub-headings.

1. From the Styles section on the

Ribbon, locate Heading 1, right
click on the style option then from
the menu select Modify.

The Modify Style dialogue box will

open.

2. Change the name property to

MainHeading

3. Click on Format > Font and apply the following settings:

Font = Ask your supervisor what font is used?
Font Style = Bold
Font Size = 14pt
Font Color = Automatic

Within the Effects Section – select All Caps.

4. Click on OK to exit the Font dialogue box.

5. Now select Format > Paragraph and apply the following settings:

Before = 12pt
After = 6pt
Line Spacing = 1.5 lines
Ensure Indentation is set to 0

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6. Click on OK to exit the Paragraph dialogue box. Click on OK again to
exit the Modify dialogue box.

7. Make sure MainHeading is selected. In the Paragraph section on the

Ribbon click on the expand arrow for the Multilevel list button.

From the list of available styles select the option

shown here:

A bold “1” will appear: 1

8. From the Styles section on the Ribbon, right click on Heading 2, then
select Modify.

9. Give it the name SecondHeading, then select Format > Font then
apply the following settings:

Font = Ask your supervisor what font is used?

Font Style = Bold
Font Style = 12pt
Font Color = Automatic

Within the Effects Section – select All Caps.

10. Click on OK to exit the Font dialogue box.

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 11. Now select Format > Paragraph and apply the following settings:

Before = 12pt
After = 6pt
Line Spacing = 1.5 lines
Ensure Indentation is set to 0

12. Click on OK to close both dialogue boxes as before.

13. Now repeat the procedure for Heading 3 giving it the name
ThirdHeading.

Note: If you can’t see Heading 3 on

the Ribbon or in the Styles list, select
Options (bottom right) in the Styles
list. Then open the drop down list for
Select styles to show: and select All
Styles. Heading 3 will now be
available in the Styles list.

Font Settings:
Font = Ask your supervisor
what font is used?
Font Style = Bold, Italic
Font Style = 12pt
Font Color = Automatic
Paragraph Settings:
Before = 12pt
After = 6pt
Line Spacing = 1.5 lines
Ensure Indentation set to 0.

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 14. At this point it would be a good idea to save your work.

You now need to insert the required headings. For this you are going to type
in the most common headings used for Masters projects. Of course, when
you undertake your Masters project, or indeed any other report you write,
including the one required for your assessment, you may have to amend
these headings and/or add more but this can be easily undertaken.

15. Type in your heading names and ensure that each one is on a new
line. For the moment, your first heading will be MainHeading style and
the rest of the headings will be BodyText. Your first heading will
therefore be numbered and capitalised. This is correct. We will amend
the other headings later. For example:

1. FIRST HEADING
Second Heading
Third Heading
Fourth Heading
Fifth Heading
Sixth Heading
Seventh Heading
Eighth Heading
References
Appendix A

2.4 SECTION BREAKS

As each section within a formal report should start on a new page, you now
need to ensure that they do so by inserting what are known as Section
Breaks.

1. Place your cursor at the beginning of your second heading. From the
Ribbon select the tab named Page Layout then in the Page Setup
section click on the Breaks option, from the Section Break Options
shown, select Next Page. A section break will then be inserted and the
second heading section should then appear on a new page.

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 2. Repeat the procedure for each heading making sure that your cursor is
at the beginning of the second heading in the list before you select
Breaks > Next Page.

3. Save your work.

2.5 APPLYING HEADINGS AND SUB HEADINGS

1. For each of the headings you typed in starting with the second
heading, highlight the text, then select the Home tab. From the Styles
section select MainHeading. The heading style will then be applied to
the text. Each heading will now be numbered sequentially.

2. In a formal report the References and Appendices section headings

are not numbered, highlight each of them in turn and remove their
numbering by selecting the numbering tool on Home tab to de-select
their numbering option. The numbering on
following headings will be automatically
updated.

3. Under a heading enter ‘This is the Design Section.’ Under this text
type in the words Concept Design. Highlight the words Concept
Design then from the Style box on the top tool bar to select
SecondHeading. The heading style will then be applied to the text as
shown below. This is how you create numbered sub-headings.

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3 CONTENTS PAGE
As all formal reports require a Table of Contents so that the reader can quickly
find a particular section, you now need to get Word to generate one for your
document style.

The contents page for reports appears after the title page of the report so you
will need to insert a new section prior to your first heading. To do this:

1. Place the cursor at the start of the your first heading, open the Page
Layout tab then insert another Next Page section break.

2. On the new blank page that appears above the first heading page,
place the cursor at the top of the page, open the Home tab and note
the Style box on the ribbon indicates the font style to be that of
MainHeading. Change this to be the style for BodyText.

3. Key in the word CONTENTS in upper case characters, insert two blank
lines, then return to the word Contents and set the font to be bold, size
14.

Word provides different default styles for contents pages. The style you
require (Arial, 12pt) is not a default style so you need to create your
own style.

4. Double click on a white area above the footer to place the focus on the
main document. Make sure the cursor is on the second blank line
underneath the contents heading. Now select the References tab, then
select Table of Contents > Insert Table of Contents. The Table of
contents dialogue box will appear.

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5. First ensure that Show Page Numbers and Use hyperlinks instead of
page numbers are selected. Look towards the bottom of the Table of
Contents dialogue box and you will note an area named General.

6. In the Formats box make sure From Template is displayed then select
Modify, the Style dialogue box will appear. Within this dialogue box
you will notice the styles are named TOC1, TOC2 etc.

7. Select TOC1 then the Modify button. In the same way that you
modified the font for Section Headings, apply the following settings:

TOC1
Font Style - Ask your supervisor what font is used?, Bold, Font Size
12pt, All Caps
TOC2
Font Style - Ask your supervisor what font is used? Bold, Font
Size 12pt
TOC3
Font Style - Ask your supervisor what font is used? Bold, Font
Size 12pt

8. Exit the Style dialogue box, click OK to exit the Index and Tables
dialogue box. You should now have a listing of the contents of your
report complete with page numbers.

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3.1 UPDATING THE CONTENTS PAGE.
There will be a need to update the contents page after you have renamed
headings, added new headings and sub headings etc. This can easily be
carried out.

1. Change one of your heading names.

2. Return to the contents page and place the cursor anywhere in the
contents listing.

3. Open the References tab, in the Table of Contents section click on

Update Table and the table of contents will be updated to reflect the
changed heading. If you are presented with a prompt for updating the
table, make sure you select Update entire table.

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4 PAGE NUMBERING
When numbering pages in reports, pages prior to the first heading are
numbered using Roman Numerals whereas pages following the Contents
page are numbered using Arabic numerals. However, the title page is never
numbered. The numbers should be at the foot of the page in the centre and
should be placed within the footer.

Headers and Footers for each section are linked to each other.

1. With the Contents page selected, click on the Insert tab then select
Footer. From the list of Footer templates select Blank. The focus
should now be on the footer. Note that a new tab (Design) is visible on
the Ribbon. This tab is made available when a header or footer is
inserted into a document.

2. On the Design tab select Page Number and then select Bottom of
Page. From the list of available options, select Plain Number 2. This
will insert the page number in the centre of the footer.

We now need to format the numbering to be as described above.

3. Select the Page Number button again but this time select Format
Page Numbers. The dialogue box will open.

4. Set the number format to be i, ii, iii (Roman numerals). Make sure that
Page numbering option is set to Start at: ii then select OK.

5. The following page numbers will be numbered using Arabic numerals.

6. Double click on a white area above the footer and the focus will now
return to the main document.

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5 TITLE PAGE
Your report has to have a title page which contains the following details:
The name of the School
University
Title of Assessment:
Name of Module:
Submission Date:
Student Name: (your full name)
Student Number: (your student number)
Module Leader: (your lecturer’s name)

An example dissertation report title page has been placed in Appendix A for
you to view.

IMPORTANT: For the purpose of reports for your assignments the title page
should include:
The name of the School
University
Module Title:
Assignment Title:
Student Name: (your full name / full name of group members)
Student Number: (your student number / group student numbers)
Module Leader: (your Lecturer’s name)
Submission Date:

An example title page has been placed in Appendix B for you to view. This is a
suggested format only but the content is required.

If you are working in a group the student numbers and names of all the
group members should be included on the title page.

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 1. To create the title page, insert a Next Page section break at the start of
the heading titled CONTENTS. (Page Layout tab > Breaks > Next
Page)

Note the page number at the bottom of this new page. Title pages are
not numbered, but before you delete the number you need to
disconnect the footer on the Contents page from the footer on the title
page, otherwise deleting the number on the title page will also delete it
on the following pages.

2. Double click on the page number in the footer on the Contents Page.
With the Design tab selected, in the Navigation section on the ribbon
note that Link to Previous is selected. Click on this button to
disconnect the footer on the contents page from the footer on the title
page. Now you can delete the page number from the title page.

3. On the title page enter the details as shown in Appendix B. Enter your
own name and student number; the other details can be updated when
required, you must remember to remove the chevrons, these have been
included to indicate that you have to insert something.

Every assessment you hand should include a title page with

the module, your name, student number and tutor’s name
clearly shown.

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5.1 PAGE BORDERS
You may wish to include a page border on the title page, although this is
optional, for the purpose of this tutorial you are required to include a page
border.

Page borders are inserted by selecting the Page Layout tab then in the Page
Background section selecting Page Borders. The Borders and Shading
dialogue box will appear with the Page Border tab selected.

Select the type of border and border line you require, you can preview you
border on the right of the dialogue box. You must make sure that the borders
are applied to This Section – First Page only.

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