The Basics Of Styling And Formatting Text

Create Bullet Points, Adjust Line Spacing And Text Alignment (Justification)

In the previous the Text Alignment / Spacing section I showed you how to align/justify text and adjust paragraph spacing. In this section I am going to teach you how to create Bullet Points, which are indented sections of text (words, sentences or paragraphs) that usually have a dotted/circled symbol to the left of them. I say usually because you can customize bullet points using other symbols such as tick marks, arrows or numbers. Bullet points are typically used to make text stand out, normally in a listed fashion, for such things as C.Vs and Food Menus.

For the examples in this section I am going to use my food_list.docx word file. So download it, or create it if need be, and then highlight the word Apple. From there, click on the BULLETS button, which also doubles up as a drop-down menu; so make sure you click squarely on the face of that button. Otherwise you will be clicking on its drop-down menu button instead, which you do not want to happen.

The food list document was typed out as normal and then formatted - I first centered the title Food Lost by clicking on the TEXT ALIGN CENTER button. From there, I coloured Food List in red ink by selecting the FONT COLOR button (it defaults to the colour Red). I then changed the size of the font to 11 Points by selecting 11 from the FONT SIZE drop-down menu.

Fig 1.0  Highlight the word Apple and then click squarely on the BULLETS button




Fig 1.1  The word Apple has been bulleted - It's had a bullet point to applied to it

When you click on the BULLETS button (Fig 1.0 above), with the word Apple highlighted, the word Apple becomes indented (Fig 1.1 above) and a solid dot (circle) is placed on the left-side of the word Apple. The solid dot (circle) is known as the Bullet Point. If you apply the above instructions to any of the other words they will become bulleted too.

Fig 1.2  Highlight a word and then click on the BULLETS button to make that highlighted word bulleted

In the above example I have highlighted the word Sandwich and then clicked on the BULLETS button to make the word Sandwich bulleted. So now the words Apple and Sandwich are bulleted.

To make all of the words bulleted in one go you would highlight all of the words, in their unbulleted (not bulleted) state, and then click on the BULLETS button.

Fig 1.3  Highlight all of the words and then click on the BULLETS button to make them all bulleted

So to clarify the above. All you need to do to bullet one word (place a solid dot on its left-side) is highlight that word and then click on the BULLETS button. And if you want to bullet all words in a sequence you highlight all of those words and then click on the BULLETS button. It's that simple!

INSERTING  SUB-BULLET  POINTS

The above is okay for simple bullet points but in some cases you need to insert sub-bullet points. These are bullet points that emphasise that an item in your list belongs to a category or group by way of more indentation and a different symbol (dot/circle). For example. In this next example I have changed the Food List to represent a Cake Preparation list (now using a font size of 12) whereby I need to sub-bullet (categorize) the Ingredients items and the Utensils items. This is done by clicking on the INCREASE INDENT (Fig 1.5).

Fig 1.4  A word document ready to be formatted into a Cake Preparation list with sub-bullets (categories)

Begin by bullet pointing your first level of items, as described and exampled above - In the example below I have bullet pointed the Ingredients and Utensils items following the method described above. From there I have highlighted and bullet pointed the wording Eggs (6). Again, using the method described and exampled above.

Fig 1.5  Highlight and bullet point your first level of words; then bullet point the 1st word of the next level.

Eggs (6) and Flour (1 small packet) will be the second level of wording. Or put another way, they will be the sub-bulleted (categorized) wordings that will be indented in order for them to represent the next level (category). All will become clear in a minute! For now, with Eggs (6) bullet pointed and still highlighted, the next thing to do is click on the INCREASE INDENT (Fig 1.5 above). This will indent Eggs (6) so that it stands out from Ingredients. In other words, it will now be clearly visible that Eggs (6) is a sub-category of Ingredients.

Fig 1.6  Click on the INCREASE INDENT button to make a word more indented

As you can see from the above example; Eggs (6) has now become indented from Ingredients. To do the same thing for Flour (1 small packet) you only need to highlight Flour (1 small packet) and then click on the BULLETS button (Fig 1.7 below). You don't then need to click on the INCREASE INDENT button because microsoft word 2010 knows that Flour (1 small packet) follows on from the wording Eggs (6) and therefore knows it should format (indent) Flour (1 small packet) in the same way as Eggs (6).

This is one of the good things about formatting - Word follows certain format rules whereby, in this case, it makes life easier for you. Instead of going through each word highlighting it, bullet pointing it and then indenting it further you simply highlight it and then bullet point it.

Fig 1.7  Highlight another word for indentation and then click on the BULLETS button




Fig 1.8  The wording Flour (1 small packet) has been indented (sub-bulleted / categorized) like Eggs (6)

You would do the same as above for the Utensils category. You would first highlight and then bullet point the wording Spoons (1 Teaspoon and 1 Tablespoon), and then you would click on the INCREASE INDENT button to make Spoons (1 Teaspoon and 1 Tablespoon) an indented item (category) of Utensils. From there you would highlight the wording Rolling Pin (1 big and 1 small) and then click on the BULLETS button, and not the INCREASE INDENT button, to give it the same indentation (formatting) as Spoons (1 Teaspoon and 1 Tablespoon).

Fig 1.9  The Cake Preparation list has been formatted into categories

If you wanted to create categories (sub-bullets) in one go, perhaps with 100 items to categorize (sub-bullet), you would first need to highlight all of those wordings (i.e. 100 items) and then bullet point them (by clicking on the BULLETS button). From there you would then click on the INCREASE INDENT button.

In this next example I have highlighted and bullet pointed Eggs (6) and Flour (1 small packet) before clicking on the INCREASE INDENT button.

Fig 1.10  Click on the INCREASE INDENT button once all of the category items have been bullet pointed




Fig 1.11  The Ingredients items were sub-bulleted (indented / categorized) in one go

The INCREASE INDENT button does not stay switched on, by the way, because it's not a Toggle (On/Off) button. You can clearly see that something has been indented in other words, so there is no reason for it to stay switched on once you have clicked on it.

AN  EVEN  QUICKER  WAY

One of the quickest way to format a list like the above is to highlight and bullet point all of the items at once (Fig 1.12 below) and then sub-bullet (categorize) the two sections one by one (Figures 1.14 and 1.15). You will need to unhighlight the whole selection though before you highlight one of the two sections for categorization (Fig 1.13).

So to clarify. Once all of the items have been bullet pointed (Fig 1.12) you then unhighlight them all by clicking any where inside the window's white display area (Fig 1.13). From there, you highlight the first section of items (wordings) to be sub-bullet pointed (categorized) and then click on the INCREASE INDENT button (Fig 1.14). You then do the same action for the second section of items/wordings to be categorized (Fig 1.15).

Fig 1.12  Highlight all items and then click on the BULLETS button to bullet point those highlighted items




Fig 1.13  Now unhighlight all items by clicking anywhere in the window's white display area




Fig 1.14  Highlight the first items to be sub-bullet pointed and then click on INCREASE INDENT




Fig 1.15  The second lot of highlighted items have been sub-bullet pointed using INCREASE INDENT

The above has shown the very basics of Bullet Point formatting. In the next couple of sections I will be showing you how to change the style of a bullet point and also how to manage spacing.