Users often ask how they can place headings, notes, or other text in the page margins.  MVP Suzanne Barnhill offers a comprehensive discussion on this topic in her tutorial Marginal Text.  One of the methods that she proposes is a margin text style.  This can be fiddly (Suzanne's own words) to set up.

I second Suzanne's assessment.  I tried setting up a similar style (without her tutorial) and struggled considerably.  After that I thought,  why not use a macro to do the dirty work?  Once a basic Margin Text style is set up it is a cinch to edit and refine to an individual user's taste.  After all it is a style and all styles are easily modified.

Here is the code:

Sub MarginTextStyle()
Dim styleName As String
Dim oStyle As Style

styleName = "Margin Text"
'Create/Setup the style
For Each oStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles
  If oStyle.NameLocal = styleName Then GoTo Setup
Next oStyle
ActiveDocument.Styles.Add Name:=styleName, Type:=wdStyleTypeParagraph
Setup:
With ActiveDocument.Styles(styleName)
  .AutomaticallyUpdate = False
  .BaseStyle = ""
  .NextParagraphStyle = "Normal"
End With
With ActiveDocument.Styles(styleName).Font
  .Size = 8
  .ColorIndex = wdAuto
End With
With ActiveDocument.Styles(styleName).ParagraphFormat
  .LineSpacingRule = wdLineSpaceSingle
  .WidowControl = False
  .KeepWithNext = True
  .KeepTogether = True
  .OutlineLevel = wdOutlineLevelBodyText
  .Shading.BackgroundPatternColor = wdColorLightYellow
  With .Borders
    .OutsideLineStyle = wdLineStyleSingle
    .OutsideLineWidth = wdLineWidth050pt
    .OutsideColor = wdColorAutomatic
    .DistanceFromTop = 1
    .DistanceFromLeft = 1
    .DistanceFromBottom = 1
    .DistanceFromRight = 1
    .Shadow = False
  End With
End With
With ActiveDocument.Styles(styleName).Frame
  .TextWrap = True
  .WidthRule = wdFrameExact
  .Width = 66
  .HeightRule = wdFrameAuto
  .RelativeHorizontalPosition = wdRelativeHorizontalPositionPage
  .RelativeVerticalPosition = wdRelativeVerticalPositionParagraph
  .HorizontalDistanceFromText = InchesToPoints(0.08)
  .VerticalDistanceFromText = InchesToPoints(0)
  .LockAnchor = False
End With
End Sub
 

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