Style Area

You might want to display the styles in your document as you work.
The style area allows you to view the styles and the document at the same time.

The default is 0 meaning that the style area will not be displayed.
A common style area is 0.8 inches. This is sufficient to display most style names without reducing the editing are too much.
This is only available in Normal and Outline view. It is not available in any of the other views.
(Tools > Options)(View tab, "Style area width")

To hide the style area you can drag the border to the left or change the width of the style area to 0 from the (Tools > Options).
You can change the width of the style area by dragging the border with the mouse.

Normal View

You can quickly highlight a paragraph of text by clicking on the style name.

Outline View

Resizing the Style Area

After you have defined a style are you can resize it using your mouse.
Place the cursor over the border of the style area and when the cursor changes to a vertical bar you can drag the border with the mouse.