Chapter 6
Formatting Text
In This Chapter
Changing fonts
Changing the font size
Using text styles
Coloring text
Justifying text
Creating lists
Clearing formatting
After you type text into a document, edit it, and check it for spelling and grammatical errors, you’re ready to make it look pretty — a process known as formatting text. A properly formatted document can make your text easy to read, while a poorly formatted document can make even the best writing difficult or confusing to read.
The Home tab groups Word’s formatting tools into three categories:
Font: Defines the font, font size, color, highlighting, and style (bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript, and case)
Paragraph: Defines justification (left, center, or right), line spacing, shading, borders, indentation, formatting symbols, and list style (bullets, numbered, and outline)
Styles: Displays predefined formatting that you can apply to your text
To format any text, follow these steps:
1. Select the text you want to format.
2. Choose a formatting tool.
Changing the Font
The most common way to format text is to change the font. The font defines the uniform style and appearance of letters; examples include Baskerville, Old English, and Stencil.
To change the font, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text you want to change.
3. Click the Font list box.
A list of the fonts available on your computer appears, as shown in Figure 6-1.
4. Move the mouse pointer over each font.
Word temporarily changes your selected text (from Step 2) so you can see how the currently highlighted font will look.
5. Click the font you want to use.
Word changes your text to appear in your chosen font.
Figure 6-1: The Font list box displays the appearance of each font.
Changing the Font Size
The font changes the appearance of text, but the font size defines how big (or small) the text may look. To change the font size, you have two choices:
Select a numeric size from the Font Size list box.
Choose the Grow Font/Shrink Font commands.
To change the font size, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text you want to change.
3. Choose one of the following:
• Click the Font Size list box and then click a number, such as 12 or 24, as shown in Figure 6-2.
• Click the Grow Font or Shrink Font icon.
Figure 6-2: Changing the font size changes how big or small your text appears.
Changing the Text Style
The text style defines the appearance of text in one or more of the following ways:
Bold: Press Ctrl+B.
Italic: Press Ctrl+I.
Underline: Press Ctrl+U.
Strikethrough: This formatting draws a line through text.
Subscript: Use this to create text that falls below the text line, as in the 2 in H2O.
Superscript: Use this to create text that sits higher than the top of the text line, as in the 2 in E = mc2.
To change the style of text, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text you want to change.
3. Click a Style icon, such as Bold or Underline.
4. Repeat Step 3 for each additional style you want to apply to your text (such as italic and underlining).
Changing Colors
Color can emphasize text. There are two ways to use color:
Change the color of the text (Font color).
Highlight the text with a different color (Text Highlight color).
Changing the color of text
When you change the color of text, you’re physically displaying a different color for each letter. Normally Word displays text in black, but you can change the color to anything you want, such as bright red or dark green.
To change the color of text, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text you want to color.
3. Click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the Font Color icon.
A color palette appears, as shown in Figure 6-3.
4. Click a color.
Word displays your selected text (from Step 2) in your chosen color.
Figure 6-3: Coloring text in different ways can emphasize parts of your document.
Highlighting text with color
Highlighting text mimics coloring chunks of text with a highlighting marker that students often use to emphasize passages in a book. To highlight text, follow these steps.
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text you want to highlight.
3. Click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the Text Highlight Color icon.
A color palette appears, as shown in Figure 6-4.
Figure 6-4: The Text Highlight Color palette lets you choose a highlighting color.
4. Click a color.
Word highlights your selected text (from Step 2) in your chosen color.
5. Press Esc (or click the Text Highlight Color icon again) to turn off the Text Highlight Color command.
To remove a highlight, select the text and choose the same color again or choose No Color.
Using Text Effects
If you want a fast way to format text to make it appear colorful like a neon sign, then you can use Text Effects by following these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text you want to modify.
3. Click the Text Effects icon.
A menu of different effects appears, as shown in Figure 6-5.
Figure 6-5: The Text Effects menu displays all available visual effects for text.
4. Click an effect.
Word changes your selected text (from Step 2) in your chosen visual effect.
Justifying Text Alignment
Word can align text in one of four ways, as shown in Figure 6-6:
Left: Text appears flush against the left margin but ragged on the right margin.
Center: Every line appears centered within the left and right margins.
Right: Text appears flush against the right margin but ragged on the left margin.
Justified: Text appears flush against both the left and right margins.
Figure 6-6: The four different alignment styles display text in different ways.
To align text, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Move the cursor anywhere in the text you want to align.
3. Click one of the alignment icons, such as Center or Justify.
Adjusting Line Spacing
Line spacing defines how close lines appear stacked on top of each other. To change the line spacing of text, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text where you want to adjust the line spacing.
3. Click the Line Spacing icon.
A pull-down menu appears, as shown in Figure 6-7.
4. Click the line spacing you want, such as 1 (single spacing) or 3 (triple spacing).
Figure 6-7: Line spacing can make text appear farther apart or squashed together vertically.
By default, Word automatically adds a blank line between paragraphs regardless of the line spacing you choose. To get rid of this extra space between paragraphs, click the Page Layout tab, click in the After text box in the Paragraph group, and type 0 (zero). (The default value may be 8 or 10 pt.)
Making Lists
Word can organize and arrange text in three types of lists:
Bullets (like this list)
Numbering
Multilevel list
You can create a list from scratch or convert existing text into a list. To create a list from scratch, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Move the cursor where you want to create a list.
3. Click the Bullets, Numbering, or Multilevel List icon.
Word creates your list (bulleted or numbered).
4. Type your text and press Enter to create another blank item in your list.
5. Repeat Step 4 for each additional bullet or numbered item you want to make.
If you have existing text, you can convert it into a list by following these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text you want to convert into a list.
3. Click the Bullets, Numbering, or Outline Numbering icon.
Word converts your selected text into your chosen list where each paragraph appears as a separate item in the list.
Indenting list items
After you create a list, you may want to indent one list item underneath another one. To indent an item in a list, follow these steps:
1. Move the cursor anywhere in the text in the list item you want to indent.
2. Press the Home key to move the cursor to the front of the line.
3. Press the Tab key to indent an item to the right (or press the Shift+Tab keystroke combination to indent an item to the left).
When you indent a list, Word changes the number or bullet style to set the line apart from the rest of your list.
Converting list items back into text
If you have a list, you may want to convert one or more items back into ordinary text. To convert a list item into plain text, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the list items you want to convert into plain text.
3. Click the appropriate Bullets, Numbering, or Outline Numbering icon.
If you want to convert a bullet list item into text, click the Bullets icon.
Customizing a list
When you create a bullet or numbered list, you can choose from a variety of different styles. To choose a numbering style, follow these steps:
1. Click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of a list icon, such as the Bullet or Numbering icon.
Make sure that you don’t click the Numbering icon itself.
A pull-down menu appears, listing all the different numbering styles available, as shown in Figure 6-8.
Figure 6-8: The different numbering styles you can choose for creating numbered lists.
2. Click the numbering style you want.
The next time you click the Numbering icon, Word will use the numbering style you chose.
Renumbering numbered lists
Numbered lists can cause special problems when you’re dividing or copying them because the numbering may get out of sequence, or you may want to start numbering from a number other than one.
To change the starting number of a numbered list, follow these steps:
1. Right-click the item that you want to renumber.
If you want to renumber your entire list, right-click the first item at the top of the numbered list.
A pop-up menu appears, as shown in Figure 6-9.
Figure 6-9: Right-clicking a numbered list item to see options for renumbering your list.
2. Choose one of the following:
• Adjust List Indents: Defines the indentation of your text and number in a numbered list.
• Continue Numbering: Changes the number of the current list item to one greater than the last numbered list item earlier in the document.
• Set Numbering Value: Displays the Set Numbering Value dialog box, shown in Figure 6-10, so you can change the current list item to a specific number such as 34 or 89.
Figure 6-10: Choose a number for your list.
Using the Ruler
When you create a document, Word creates page margins automatically. However, if you want to adjust the left and right page margins, or define how far the Tab key indents text, you need to use the Ruler.
By default, Word hides the Ruler to avoid cluttering up the screen. To display (or hide) the Ruler, follow these steps:
1. Click the View tab.
2. Select (or clear) the Ruler check box in the Show group.
The Ruler appears at the top and left margin of your document, as shown in Figure 6-11.
Figure 6-11: The Ruler defines the margins and indentation for your document.
Adjusting left and right paragraph margins
The Ruler defines the left and right margins for your paragraphs. To change these paragraph margins, follow these steps:
1. Make sure that the Ruler appears visible.
2. Select any text.
3. Move the mouse pointer over the Left Indent icon on the Ruler (the top icon), hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the right to adjust the left paragraph margin.
Word displays a dotted vertical line to show you where the paragraph’s new left margin will be, as shown in Figure 6-12.
4. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the left paragraph margin.
5. Move the mouse pointer over the Right Indent icon on the Ruler, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the left to adjust the right paragraph margin.
Word displays a dotted vertical line to show you where the new right paragraph margin will be.
6. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the right paragraph margin.
Figure 6-12: Dragging the Left Indent icon lets you define a new left page margin for an entire document or just for selected text.
Defining indentation with the Ruler
The two icons on the Ruler that define indentation are the First Line Indent and the Hanging Indent icons. The First Line Indent icon defines the position of (what else?) the first line of every paragraph. The Hanging Indent icon defines the position of every line of text except for the first line, as shown in Figure 6-13.
Figure 6-13: Drag the icons to set the indentation.
To define the first line and hanging indent, follow these steps:
1. Make sure that the Ruler appears visible.
2. Select any text.
3. Move the mouse pointer over the Left Indent icon on the Ruler, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the right.
Word displays a dotted vertical line to show you where the new indentation margin will be.
4. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the left indentation of your text.
5. Move the mouse pointer over the First Line Indent icon on the Ruler, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the right (or left).
Word displays a dotted vertical line to show you where the new first line indentation will be.
6. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the first line indent position.
Using Format Painter
Formatting can be simple, such as underlining text, or fairly complicated, such as underlining text while also changing its font and font size. After you format one chunk of text a certain way, you may want to format other parts of your document the exact same way.
Although you can take time to format text manually, it’s much easier to use Format Painter instead. Format Painter tells Word, “See the way I formatted that chunk of text over there? Apply that same formatting to a new chunk of text.”
To use Format Painter, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text that contains the formatting you want to copy.
3. Click the Format Painter icon, as shown in Figure 6-14.
Figure 6-14: After you choose the Format Painter command, the mouse pointer turns into a Paintbrush icon.
4. Select the text that you want to format. (Move the mouse pointer over the beginning of the text you want to format, hold down the left mouse button, and drag the mouse until you reach the end of the text you want to format.)
Word applies your formatting to your selected text.
Using Styles
As an alternative to choosing fonts, font sizes, and text styles (such as bold) individually, Word offers several predefined formatting styles. To apply a style to your text, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text that you want to format.
3. Click the up/down arrows of the Styles scroll bar to scroll through the different styles available. Or click the More button to display a pull-down menu of all the Quick Formatting styles, as shown in Figure 6-15.
4. Move the mouse pointer over a style.
Word displays what your text will look like if you choose this style.
5. Click the style you want to use, such as Heading 1, Title, or Quote.
Word formats your text.
Figure 6-15: Clicking the More button displays a menu of all available styles.
Using Templates
In case you need to format an entire document a certain way, you may want to use templates instead. Templates act like preformatted documents. Word comes with several templates, but Microsoft offers several through its website as well.
To create a new document from a template, follow these steps:
1. Click the File tab and then choose New.
All available templates appear, as shown in Figure 6-16.
2. Double-click a template.
Word creates a blank document with “dummy” text to show you how the formatting looks.
3. Type new text into your newly created document.
You may need to be connected to the Internet to download some of the available templates.
Figure 6-16: Templates let you create a new document based on the formatting of an existing file.
Removing Formatting from Text
After you format text, you can always remove that formatting. The simplest way to do this is to apply the same formatting you want to remove. For example, if you underline text, you can remove the underlining by highlighting all the underlined text and choosing the underline command (by pressing Ctrl+U or by clicking the Underline icon).
If you want to remove multiple formatting from text, you can remove each formatting style one by one, but it’s much easier just to use the Clear Formatting command instead, which removes all formatting from text, no matter how much formatting there may be.
To use the Clear Formatting command, follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Select the text that contains the formatting you want to remove.
3. Click the Clear Formatting icon, as shown in Figure 6-17.
Word removes all formatting from your selected text.
Figure 6-17: The Clear Formatting icon removes all text formatting.
The Clear Formatting command will not remove any highlighting you may have applied over your text.
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