Word Formatting Guide PDF

A font is a combination of typeface and type style. Word allows you to change fonts, and apply text attributes , such as bold, italic, or underline to the font. To apply a font click the Home tab and locate the Font group. To change the font for selected text, or for a document you are beginning, cl...

A font is a combination of typeface and type style. Word allows you to change fonts, and apply text attributes , such as bold, italic, or underline to the font. To apply a font click the Home tab and locate the Font group. To change the font for selected text, or for a document you are beginning, click the Font arrow and select a font from the list that is displayed. 1 A characteristic of a font is the presence or absence of thin lines that end the main stroke of each letter. A serif font contains a thin line or extension at the top and bottom of the primary strokes on characters. Times New Roman is an example of a serif font. A san serif font (sans from the French word meaning without) does not contain the lines on characters. Arial is a sans serif font. Body text of newspapers and magazines are usually formatted in a serif font. A sans serif font, such as Arial or Verdana, is more effective with smaller amounts of text such as titles, headlines, corporate logos, and Web Pages. A monospaced font (such as Courier New) uses the same amount of horizontal space for every character. These fonts are usually used for tables and financial projections. A proportional font allocates space according to the width of the characters. These fonts are use for research papers, status reports, and letters. 2 The Font group is located on the Home tab. Word enables you to bold, underline, and italicize text, apply text highlighting, change font color and case, and work with different text effects. You can also clear your formatting with the Clear Formatting button. If you want to highlight important parts of your document you can use the Text Highlight Color command, located in the Font group on the Home tab. Click Text Highlight Color to select the current color or click the text Highlight Color arrow and choose another color. The mouse pointer resembles a pen when you move it over the document. You drag across the text to highlight it. Click text Highlight Color or press Esc to stop highlighting. To remove highlighted text, click the Text Highlight Color arrow, and then select No Color. 3 When you click the Font Dialog Box Launcher on the Front group you get the Font dialog box. The dialog box allows for setting Font style, Font size, and Font type along with setting additional formatting. Some of the effects that you can set are Strikethrough, Double strikethrough, Superscript, Subscript, small caps, and All caps. Changing Font Settings continues on the next slide. 4 There are a variety of effects you can add to text. You can add a shadow, outline, reflection, or a glow. The Text Effects and Typography gallery provides access to those effects, as well as WordArt styles, number styles, ligatures, and stylistic sets. Ligatures are two letters that are crafted together into a single character or glyph. A stylistic set is a collection of letter styles that you can apply to OpenType fonts. An OpenType font is an advanced form of a font that is designed for all platforms like Windows and Macintosh. They incorporate a greater extension of the basic character set. Ligatures and stylistic sets are often used for formal documents such as wedding invitations. 5 To change the appearance of a document you can change the alignment, indentation, tab stops, or line spacing. You may want to include borders or shading for added emphasis around selected paragraphs, and you can number paragraphs or enhance them with bullets. The Paragraph group on the Home tab contains several paragraph formatting commands. Formatting a paragraph continues on the next slide. 6 Left alignment is the most common alignment, it is the default when you begin a new blank Word document. The reverse of left alignment is right alignment in which text is aligned at the right margin with a ragged left edge. A center paragraph is horizontally located in the center, an equal distance from the left and right edges. Report titles and major headings are typically centered. Justified alignment spreads text evenly between the left and right margins so that text begins at the left margin and ends uniformly at the right margin. Newspaper and magazine articles are often justified. 7 Paragraph spacing is the amount of space between paragraphs. Paragraph spacing is a good way to differentiate between paragraphs. The spacing makes it clear where one paragraph ends and another begins. Spacing used to separate paragraphs usually comes after or before each affected paragraph. Click Home tab. Click Line and Paragraph Spacing in the Paragraph group. Click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher, to set paragraph spacing. 8 Line spacing is the amount of space between lines. The most common line spacing options are single, double, or 1.5. You can specify the exact size for spacing by selecting Exactly. There are other options, At Least or Multiple. If you select At Least, you will indicate a minimum line spacing size while allowing Word to adjust the height. The Multiple setting enables you to select a line spacing interval other than single, double, or 1.5. 9 An indent is a setting associated with how part of a paragraph is distanced from one or more margins. The most common is first line indent, in which each paragraph is set off from the left margin. There are also hanging indents, where the first line of a source begins at the left margin, but all other lines in the source are indented. Indenting an entire paragraph from the left margin is a left indent, while indenting an entire paragraph from the right margin is known as a right indent. You can use the Word ruler to set indents. If the ruler does not display above the document space, click the View tab and click Ruler. The three-part indicator at the left side enables you to set a left indent, hanging indent, or first line indent. 10 Borders are a line that surrounds a paragraph, a page, a table, or an image. Shading is a background color that appears behind text in a paragraph, a page, or a table. 11 When you click the Borders and Shading arrow in the Paragraph group on the Home tab and select Borders and Shading, the Borders and Shading dialog box displays. You can then select the borders or shades that you want to include in your document. The Page Border tab in the Borders and Shading dialog box provides controls that you use to place a decorative border around one or more selected pages. As with a paragraph border, you can place the border around the entire page, or one or more slides. The Page Border tab also provides an additional option for you to use preselected clip art as a border. 12 A list organizes information by topic or in a sequence. You use a numbered list if the list is a sequence of steps. If the list is not of a sequential nature, but is a simple itemization of points, you use a bulleted list. A multilevel list extends a numbered or bulleted list to several levels. You create list from the Paragraph group on the Home tab. 13 A document theme combines color, font, and graphics, simplifying the task of creating a professional, color-coordinated document. When you select a theme for a document, a unified set of design elements, including font style, color, and special effects is applied to the entire document. 14 Columns format a document or section of a document into side-by-side vertical blocks in which the text flows down the first column and continues at the top of the next column. To format text into columns, click the Page Layout tab and click Columns in the page Setup group. Specify the number of columns or select More Columns to display the Columns dialog box. The Columns dialog box provides options for setting the number of columns and spacing between columns. 15 A style is a named collection of formatting characteristics. Styles automate the formatting process and provide a consistent appearance to a document. Word provides a gallery of styles from which you can choose, or you can create your own. Styles are considered either character or paragraph. A character styles formats one or more selected characters within a paragraph, often applying font formats found in the Font group on the Home tab. A paragraph style changes the entire paragraph in which the insertion point is located, or changes multiple selected paragraphs. Other styles are neither character or paragraph, but are linked styles in which both character and paragraph formatting are included. Normal style is the default style for word. Normal style has specific font and paragraph formatting. The Styles are shown in the Styles group of the Home tab. 16 An object is an item that can be individually selected and manipulated within a document. Objects, such a pictures, text boxes, tables, clip art, and other graphic types are often included in documents to add interest or convey a point. Objects can be selected and worked with independently of the surrounding text. You can resize them, add special effects, and move them to other locations in the document. You can wrap text around an object and line up pictures and other diagrams. 17 You may want to include a picture within a document. If you do not have a picture already saved on your computer, you can go online to locate a image, without closing or minimizing the document, and without opening a browser to search the Web. To insert an online picture, click to place the insertion point in the document in the location where the picture is to be inserted. Click the Insert tab and click Online Pictures. 18 A new Ribbon tab, with one or more associated tabs beneath it, is added to the Ribbon when you insert and select an object. The new Ribbon tab is called a contextual tab. It includes commands relevant to the type of object selected. The Picture Tools Format tab includes settings and selections related to the inserted object. The format tab includes an option to wrap text around a selected picture. You can select from the text wrapping styles when you click Wrap Text. If a picture contains more detail than is necessary, you can crop it by trimming edges that you do not want to display. The Picture Tools Format tab includes options for modifying a picture. You can apply a picture style or effect, as well as add a picture border, from selections in the Picture Styles group. Click More to view a gallery of picture styles. Options in the Adjust group simplify changing color scheme, applying creative effects, adjusting brightness, contrast and sharpness. 19 You can insert a text box to draw attention to an important point of a document. A text box is bordered, sometimes shaded, and set apart from other text in a document. A text box could contain a quote, it could be used as a banner for a newsletter, or a short text excerpt that is reinforced from a report. You can select, move, resize, and modify a text box because a text box like a picture is an object. There are Layout Options that you can use to enable you to wrap text around a text box, and alignment guides to assist with positioning the text box within the existing text. Inserting Text boxes continue on next slide. 20 WordArt is a feature that modifies text to include special effects, including colors, shadows, gradients, and 3-D effects. It is a quick way to format text so that it is vibrant and eye- catching. A WordArt object is managed independently of surrounding text and cannot be formatted as a document. To insert new WordArt text into a document select the text to be formatted. Click the Insert tab. Click WordArt in the Text group. Select a WordArt style and type the text. 21