The Basics Of Styling And Formatting Text

Change Font Text Styles (Colour, Size, Bold, Italic, Underline And Strikeout)

Following on from the previous Highlighting Text section; In this section I will be explaining and exampling the basics of Text Editing. I will be covering topics such as: changing the colour of text, changing the size of text, centering text, making text bolder and underlining text amongst other things. Before I begin showing you examples though you must familiarise yourself with the difference between the word Format and the word Style.

FORMAT - To format a word document per say, including its text, means to change its Line Spacing, Indentation, Justification (Text Alignment) and to add Bullets, Headers and Footers, Page Numbers, Table Of Content and so on. In other words, the layout or organisation of the document text and more precisely its paragraphs, spacings and inserted objects. Don't worry if you don't recognise some of the terminologies just mentioned as I will be explaining them throughout this category.

STYLE - To style a word document per say, including its text, generally means to change the settings of the Font(s)/Typeface(s) used. This includes changing the colour, boldness, underline and italic of some text. It also includes the changing of the background (paper) colour. Basically anything that can make the text and background look different from a plain text document.

Referring back to the previous, Highlighting Text, section. Assuming you now have some text highlighted, in blue, the next step is to change its style.

Refresher: How to highlight some text with the mouse - You first place the Text Editor mouse pointer to the left of the word(s) you want highlighting and then click and hold down the click (left mouse button) as you then move (drag) the Text Editor mouse pointer to the right until all of the characters (letters/words/sentences) are highlighted in blue. When this is done you release (let go of) the left mouse button. The word(s) you wanted highlighting will then be highlighted, and selected ready for use.

Fig 1.0  Highlight some text by dragging the Text Cursor mouse pointer over it

In these first examples I will show you how to make highlighted text bold, italic and underlined. I am using a shopping list for these examples, as opposed to the letter from the previous section, as it makes the examples easier to learn. Anyway, begin by clicking on the BOLD button, located on the HOME Tab (window).

Fig 1.1  Click on the BOLD button, located on the HOME Tab (window pane), to continue




Fig 1.2  The highlighted text has now become bold and the BOLD button has remained switched on

When you click on the BOLD button your highlighted text becomes bold (thicker) and the BOLD button itself stays switched on, denoted by it yellow background. This is because it's a Toggle Button - A button that acts like an ON/OFF switch. So if you click on it again the highlighted text will become normal (non-bold) again and the BOLD button itself will then be switched off; the same as in Fig 1.0 above.

To make the highlighted text Italic (slanted) you do the same as you did with the BOLD button - You click on the ITALIC button once to switch on Italic (below) and click the ITALIC button again to switch off Italic and therefore make the highlighted text straight/unslanted again.

Fig 1.3  Click on the ITALIC button to make the highlighted text slanted - Italic

To make the highlighted text Underlined you do the same as you did with the BOLD and ITALIC buttons - You click on the UNDERLINE button once to switch on Underline and click the UNDERLINE button again to switch off Underline.

Fig 1.4  The highlighted text is now Bold, Italic and Underlined - All three buttons are switched on

You don't have to have Bold, Italic and Underline switched on all at once simply because sometimes you may only want your highlighted text to be in the Bold style for example. Or in the Italic or Underline style only. Also, it's not good practise/etiquette to over use these text styles. Your documents can look tacky and too computerised. If you are writing a C.V or letter to your solicitor you wouldn't want it to look over computerised - You would want it to look like it was produced by a human to some degree.

CHANGE  THE  LINE  STYLE

If you want to style the actual line used by Underline; Click on the LINE STYLES drop-down menu (triangle/arrow) to the right of the UNDERLINE button, to display the available line styles, and then select (left click on) the line style you want to use. As you hover the mouse pointer over the available line styles the current line underneath the text (its underline) will temporarily change in accordance to what line style you are hovering over, but will not permanently change until you select an available line style.

With the example below the word Butter is underlined as normal, with a straight line, but as I hover over the squiggly line style microsoft word previews what the squiggly line style will look like with the word Butter. If I like what I see I can change the straight line into a squiggly line by selecting the squiggly line from the LINE STYLES drop-down menu.

Fig 1.5  You can change the line style of the currently underlined text via the LINE STYLES drop-down menu

That previewing of the available underline styles is a general feature of Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010. Meaning, the same previewing happens when you change the font name or font size of highlighted text.

CHANGE  THE  FONT  SIZE

For example. To change the font size of the word Butter you would first highlight the word Butter and then click on the FONT SIZE drop-down menu (triangle/arrow), located on the right-side of the actual FONT SIZE edit box. From there you would then hover over the font sizes in order to preview what each font size looks like with the word Butter. If you are happy with what you see you simply select the font size.

Fig 1.6  You can change the font size of highlighted text using the FONT SIZE drop-down menu

In the example above I have applied the squiggly line style to the word Butter, by selecting the squiggly line style from the UNDERLINE drop-down menu, as described above. I have then clicked on the FONT SIZE drop-down menu in order to hover the mouse pointer over the number (font size) 36, so I can preview what font size 36 looks like with the word Butter.

At this point the edit box within the FONT SIZE drop-down menu states the current font size for Butter to be 11, which is true, but the preview shows what Butter looks like in font size 36. So until I select the number (font size) 36, the word Butter will still actually be of font size 11. In other words, if I move the mouse pointer away from the FONT SIZE drop-down menu the word Butter will shrink back (display) to its actual font size of 11.

One thing to point out at this stage is that the highlighted text might not always be highlighted. This is because certain functions, such as preview functions like font size, will make the highlight purposely disappear so that you can see the preview/effect.

CHANGE  THE  FONT  (TYPEFACE)

In this next example I will preview the font (typeface) called Times New Roman using the word Butter for the example. Previewing is normally done in the same way as described above for line styles and font sizes - You simply click on the FONT drop-down menu in order to hover over and preview the different font (typeface) names with their associated styles (not shown here) - However, in this example I will tell you how to use the FONT edit box instead.

You begin by clicking inside the FONT edit box so that the font called: Calibri is highlighted. From there, you press the keyboard key representing the first letter of the font you want to use. For example. If you want to use Times New Roman you first type in the letter T. This puts the word (font name) Tahoma inside the FONT edit box. If you then type in the letter I, Times New Roman is then put inside the FONT edit box.

So to make the word Butter use the font called Times New Roman, which is now inside the FONT edit box, you can either press the ENTER keyboard key or click anywhere inside the white area of the page. This is known as "Setting The Font".

Fig 1.7  Type T, and then I, into the FONT edit box to change the current font name to Times New Roman




Fig 1.8  Press the ENTER keyboard key to make the highlighted word use the Times New Roman font

Going back to the font size. The FONT SIZE edit box works in a similar way to the FONT edit box. If you want to use a specific font size, such as 32, you click inside the FONT SIZE edit box and change its current size before pressing the ENTER keyboard key to "Set The Font Size".

CHANGE  THE  FOREGROUND (INK)  COLOUR

IF you want to set the font colour you can do so by using the FONT COLOR drop-down menu. It allows you to set a predefined colour, or choose your own colour, for the foreground (ink) colour.

So to set the foreground colour of the word Butter to Light Blue you first click on the FONT COLOR drop-down menu and then hover the mouse pointer over the colour Light Blue. At this point the word Butter will only be previewed in Light Blue. It will not be set to Light Blue until you select (left click on) the colour Light Blue. Meaning, if you do not select Light Blue and move the mouse pointer away from the FONT COLOR drop-down menu the word Butter will maintain its old, original, colour; of black in this case.

Fig 1.9  Click on the colour you want to use for the foreground (ink) colour

If you want more control over the foreground colour by way of setting your own colour you can do so by clicking on the MORE COLORS link at the bottom of the FONT COLOR drop-down menu (not shown here). This will bring up the COLORS window (below) whereby you can create your own Custom colour or use a Standard colour. Simply click on the CUSTOM Tab (window) or the STANDARD Tab (window), select or create a colour and then click on the OK button to apply it to your highlighted word.

Fig 1.10  Create your own colour by moving the slider or changing the RED, GREEN and BLUE values




Fig 1.11  Click on a standard colour if you do not want to use the Microsoft Word palette/colours

At this stage of learning you should not really concern yourself with the advanced side of colours and changing them. You should stick to using the standard microsoft office colours (colour scheme) instead. They cover the basic colours used in every day word documents for example - Most people only use red, green and blue in their word documents to highlight certain things; such as important paragraphs and names.

CHANGE  THE  BACKGROUND (TEXT HIGHLIGHT)  COLOUR

Although you cannot create a custom colour for the background (text highlight) colour, using the TEXT HIGHLIGHT drop-down menu, you can select a standard/predefined background colour. The background colour, which has a limited choice of colours for some strange reason, emulates a "Marker Pen" or "Highlighter" and is ideal for "Yellow Highlight" in printouts.

Fig 1.12  Click on the colour you want to use for the background (text highlight) colour

In the next, and last, example I will show you how to use Strikeout. It allows you to put a strikeout (line) through highlighted words, making it ideal for shopping lists, legal documents and documents whereby one or more items need to be seen as obsolete or irrelavent but still present in the document.

USING  STRIKEOUT  TO  CROSS-OUT  WORDS

With a shopping list for example; Imagine you are printing out the same shopping list each week but this week, and for the next four weeks, you decide you don't want any butter. You could just delete the word butter and then print out this amended shopping list five times, one for each week. However, depending on how your shopping list document has been formatted (i.e. with each item bulletted) you may end up messing up the document's formatting (explained in the next section). So a much better way of doing this would be to use the STRIKEOUT button, which is a toggle (on/off) button.

Begin by highlighting the word Butter, if it's not already highlighted, and then click on the STRIKEOUT button to put a line through Butter. Using the TEXT HIGHLIGHT drop-down menu automatically deselects highlighted text, by default (normal behaviour), hence why I say "if the word Butter is not already highlighted...".

Fig 1.13  Highlight the word Butter and then click on the STRIKEOUT button to cross it out




Fig 1.14  The word Butter now has a STRIKEOUT (line) running through the middle of it

One important thing to take notice of in the above examples is that anything you switch on/off, or change, remains so until you change them again. So if you have BOLD switched on, the BOLD button will stay on (denoted by its orange-ish "switched on" background). Furthermore, if you change one of the font colours (background or foreground) to blue for example its drop-down menu button will remain in that colour until you change the colour.

This is important to note because it applies to each highlight/selection you do. So if the word Butter is underlined and you highlight Butter, the I of Italic will become switched on to let you know the word butter is Italic. If you then highlight a word that is not Italic, such as Milk, the I will become switched off to let you know that Milk (the currently highlighted word) is not Italic. So these buttons, drop-down menus and colours change in accordance to what is highlighted/selected in other words.

In the next section I will teach you the basics of Formatting - centering the text, adding bullets (dots), line spacing and more. Do not think this section and the next are all there is to styling and formatting a document. As these lessons progress you will learn about the more, advanced, features of microsoft word in general.