The Basics Of Styling And Formatting Text

Center, Align, Justify Text And Adjust Paragraph Line Spacing

In the previous (Change Font Text Styles) section I created a mini shopping list to example the, basic, font styling features of microsoft office 2010. In this section I will be using that same shopping list, in its original plain text (non-styled) state, to show you how to center text and so on. I will also being using the Dear Maud.docx text (letter) to show you how to adjust line spacing with paragraphs, that can then be applied to a whole document if need be.

Formatting text naturally follows on from styling text if you are wanting more than just colourfully typed text, as in the previous section. In these first examples I will show you how to align text, known as text alignment or justification, with the very first example showing you how to center align text.

Begin by highlighting some text, in this example the text Shopping List, and then click on the ALIGN TEXT CENTER button. Doing so will then make the text (wording) Shopping List move from the left-side of the page to the center of the page. The ALIGN TEXT CENTER button will then be switched on - It is a Toggle (Switched On/Off) button.

Fig 1.0  Highlight some text and then click on the ALIGN TEXT CENTER button to center align the text

If you have read the previous section you will recall that a toggle button is a button that represents something as Switched ON (orange background) or Switched OFF (clear background). In this example (below) the ALIGN TEXT CENTER button becomes switched on and therefore has an orange background.

Fig 1.1  The ALIGN TEXT CENTER toggle button is now in a "Switched ON" state

With the Shopping List text now centered you might move on and center the text: Buy The Red Items Only. However, lets assume you accidently click on the ALIGN TEXT CENTER button when you really wanted to click on the ALIGN RIGHT TEXT button. In that case you would simply click on the ALIGN TEXT RIGHT button to right align the already highlighted text. If the text was not highlighted, for whatever reason(s), you would highlight it again and then click on the ALIGN TEXT RIGHT button.

Fig 1.2  Click on the ALIGN TEXT RIGHT toggle button to right align the highlighted text




Fig 1.3  The highlighted Shopping List text has been right aligned (moved to the right-side of the page)

The above said applies to the ALIGN TEXT LEFT toggle button, which is the default alignment button - Text is aligned to the left-side of the page by default (normal, standard, behaviour).

The last of the four text alignment buttons is the ALIGN TEXT JUSTIFY toggle button. To use it you need to highlight a paragraph or at least two lines of continuous text. In fact this is not strictly true because you can put the Text Cursor to the left-side of a paragraph (not shown here) before clicking on the ALIGN TEXT JUSTIFY toggle button. In this example though, to get you in the habit of highlighting text (which is a good thing), highlight a paragraph first and then click on the ALIGN TEXT JUSTIFY toggle button.

In this example I am using the Dear Maud.docx file from the How To Highlight Text section.

Fig 1.4  Highlight a paragraph of text and then click on the ALIGN TEXT JUSTIFY toggle button

So what does the function behind the ALIGN TEXT JUSTIFY toggle button do? Answer. It aligns the highlighted text so that it spreads across the page, from the left margin to the right margin, making all lines of highlighted text equal in width. It does this by adding spaces in between certain words in order to give the illusion that all lines, of highlight text, are of equal width.

Fig 1.5  The highlighted text lines are now of equal, justified, width.

If you look towards the end of the first and second lines (Figures 1.4 and 1.5 above) you will notice that Went To (line 1) and I Haven't (line 2) have now become of equal width whereas before (Fig 1.4 above) those two lines were of odd widths.

To give you a better idea of what I mean I will resize the text, using the FONT SIZE drop-down menu (explained in a previous section), and then justify it. The larger font size exposes where the spaces were added.

One thing to note here is that resizing text in this way (i.e. resizing it to a font size of 20) will naturally make that text wrap around five lines instead of three in this case. In other words, it is impossible that the highlighted paragraph text can remain within three lines with a font size of 20.

Fig 1.6  The highlighted text has been resized to font size 20 and is therefore displayed over 5 lines now




Fig 1.7  Font size 20 exposes where the highlighted text has been justified (look at line 3 for example)

If you look at the third line of text in particular it shows exactly how ALIGN TEXT JUSTIFY works. The word Office and To (left-side of line 3) shows a gap of two spaces now (Fig 1.7 above) whereas before (Fig 1.6 above) it was one, natural, space. And talking of space.....

ADJUSTING  LINE  SPACE

To adjust the spacing between each line within a paragraph for example begin by highlighting a paragraph and then click on the LINE AND PARAGRAPH SPACING drop-down menu. By default (normal, standard, behaviour) the drop-down menu will have the 1.5 size ticked (switched on). Sizes are measured in Points and not in CMs or Inches. Ignore these technicals for now though! and start hovering the mouse pointer over the sizes.

Fig 1.8  Highlight a paragraph and then click on the LINE AND PARAGRAPH SPACING drop-down menu

As you hover the mouse pointer over the sizes, over 3.0 for example, the spacing between each line (line spacing) begins to grow (get higher). There is no point going further than 3.0, which is possible via the paragraph/line spacing options, simply because it would be easier to create manual line breaks (new lines) by going to the end of each line and pressing the ENTER keyboard key.

Creating line spaces, and therefore the illusion of creating new lines/line breaks, using this highlight text and LINE AND PARAGRAPH SPACING drop-down menu method means you do not have to use the laborious manual line breaking method. In other words, this highlighting text method is much quicker and easier.

Fig 1.9  As you hover the mouse pointer over the sizes the spacing between each line grows

When you are happy with the line spacing size simply click on the size, the number on the LINE AND PARAGRAPH SPACING drop-down menu, to make the line spacing permanent. Hovering the mouse pointer over the sizes only just previews what the line spacing will look like. Meaning, if you move the mouse pointer away from the LINE AND PARAGRAPH SPACING drop-down menu the paragraph will be displayed in its current/original size of 1.5 for example. Previewing was explained in the Change Font Text Styles section.

ADJUSTING  SPACING  BEFORE / AFTER

If you want to adjust the spacing at the top and/or bottom of an already highlighted paragraph one of the best ways to do it is to use the SPACING settings on the PAGE LAYOUT Tab (window). Click on the PAGE LAYOUT Tab (window) and then look towards the middle of it to locate the SPACING section. It contains two edit boxes, which are named SPACING BEFORE and SPACING AFTER respectively, that also have a pair of UP (Increase) and DOWN (Decrease) ARROW buttons next to them.

SPACING BEFORE allows you to decrease the amount of space between two paragraphs or sentences whereas SPACING AFTER (located underneath the SPACING BEFORE edit box) allows you to increase the amount of space between two paragraphs or sentences.

In this next example I will show you how to change the spacing for SPACING AFTER, which is exactly the same as changing the space for SPACING BEFORE. Anyway! Highlight a paragraph, if you have not done so already, and then click on INCREASE button (UP ARROW button) of the SPACE AFTER edit box.

Fig 1.10  Click on INCREASE button (UP ARROW button) of the SPACE AFTER edit box to continue

The default size (space) for the gap (space) after a paragraph is 10 pt (10 Points) and the default size (space) for the gap (space) above a paragraph is 0 pt (zero points). Hence why there is a natural (default) space of 13 points between the two paragraphs How Are You Today..... and I Can't Believe.....  13 points because there is 10 points after the paragraph How Are You Today..... and 3 points above the paragraph I Can't Believe.....

By clicking on the INCREASE button (UP ARROW button) of the SPACE AFTER edit box you can increase the space after (that follows) the paragraph How Are You Today.....  In this example I am currently changing that spacing to 84 Points. Note - This is not a previewing button. Meaning, as you click on the INCREASE button the spacing that grows/increases is permanent. If you move the mouse pointer away from the INCREASE button the spacing will not revert back to 10 Points for example. It will remain at 84 Points. The same applies to decreasing the space with the DECREASE button (DOWN ARROW button).

Fig 1.11  The spacing after the How Are You Today.... paragraph is currently set at 84 Points

So to clarify. If you want the spacing below a paragraph increasing or decreasing you use the INCREASE and DECREASE buttons of the SPACE AFTER edit box and if you want the spacing above a paragraph increasing or decreasing you use the INCREASE and DECREASE buttons of the SPACE BEFORE edit box.

You can also type a number (size) into one of those edit boxes, followed by a press of the ENTER keyboard key, to change the associated spacing. For example, in the example below I have typed 66 into the SPACE BEFORE edit box (Fig 1.12) and then pressed ENTER so that the spacing above the highlighted paragraph increases from 0 Points to 66 Points (Fig 1.13). Note - You must press ENTER or click elsewhere (i.e. inside the page or inside another edit box) to make the changes permanent.

Fig 1.12  Click inside the SPACE BEFORE edit box, type in a size and then press the ENTER keyboard key




Fig 1.13  The spacing before (above) the How Are You Today.... paragraph has been set to 66 Points

The gap (space) between the Dear Maud, line and the How Are You Today.... paragraph is now 76 Points in total because there is 10 Points after (below) Dear Maud, and 66 Points before (above) How Are You Today....  This is regardless of the How Are You Today.... paragraph being highlighted. Highlighting is only needed in order to perform a certain action such as changing paragraph spacing or font styles. In other words, the gap (space) in this example will still be 76 Points even when all of the text has been deselected/dehighlighted.

The above also applies to multiple highlighted paragraphs. For example, in the example below I have highlighted two paragraphs and then set the SPACE BEFORE setting to 30 Points. This means there is 30 Points above the How Are You Today.... paragraph and 30 Points above the I Can't Believe..... paragraph. However, remember there is also the SPACE AFTER setting of 10 Points applied to the Dear Maud, line and the two paragraphs. This makes the total space (gap) between Dear Maud, and How Are You Today.... 40 Points and the total space (gap) between Seen Him For Ages..... and I Can't Believe..... 40 Points.

Fig 1.14  The total space between paragraphs is set to 40 Points - 10 Points (AFTER) and 30 Points (BEFORE)

The above has taught you the three main spacing features with regards to paragraphs. Namely: SPACE BEFORE (the space above a paragraph), SPACE AFTER (the space below a paragraph) and LINE SPACING (the space between each line within a paragraph). Practise using them because they come in handy when making a C.V for example whereby you need space to fit in all of your qualifications and so on.

In the next example I will be showing you how to create Bullet Points (indented dots/circles). They help with showcases certain items within a document, such as your qualifications or items in a shopping list.