How do you make your word document really stand out from the crowd? By formatting your text. Here's a look at how WestCal publishing make use of formatting. Grace has been tasked with responding to some mail that WestCal has recently received. She must make sure that all replies are formatted according to WestCals branding guidelines. With Microsoft Word, Grace can format the letter to match WestCal's brand. In this lesson, you'll also learn how to use the formatting features in Microsoft Word. By the end of this lesson, you'll know how to apply character formatting, align text using tabs and display text as list items. Before you begin, you should know what text formatting is along with the different formatting methods available to Microsoft Word users. Microsoft Word offers a wide variety of formatting options that you can apply to your text whether you want to create a straightforward simple design or a vibrant modern look. Microsoft Word has all the tools that you need. There are several formatting methods available in Word, including fonts, the font group commands on the home tab, highlighting text, the format painter and the mini toolbar. Fonts are one of the most important elements in formatting. A font is a complete set of characters with typeface and style used to create text in your document. Fonts come in a range of different styles. Some fonts are all capitals, while other fonts are all symbols. The key thing to remember is that fonts are very customizable. You can change different elements of a font, including size, type, color, spacing, and effects along with other options. The fonts that are available in Word depend on what other applications are installed and if you have installed any extra font packages. However, Word and Windows come with quite a few fonts preinstalled. So you have plenty of choice to begin with. Here's a sample of some different fonts. To alter a font, you typically select the text that you want to change, you may have noticed the mini toolbar pop up if you move your mouse near or right click selected text. The toolbar contains the most frequently used formatting commands. Here's a quick look at each option. Select these drop down menus to change the font face and size. Use these buttons to nudge the font size up or down. Click this icon to toggle the format painter. This lets you copy the text formatting from the selected text and paint it onto another text. Apply bold, italic or underlining effects to the text. Select this icon to highlight text, click the drop down arrow for additional highlighting colors. You can also change font color, click the drop down arrow for additional fonts colors. Apply bullets or numbers to the selected text, click the drop down arrow to choose a style and apply a style to the selected text. You can explore more formatting commands on the font group of the home tab. The two drop down menus on the top row of this group allow you to change front face and size. Next to those menus, you will find commands to nudge the font size up or down, change the case of the selected text and clear formatting from text. On the second row of this group, the first six buttons allow you to apply bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript and subscript formatting. Each button shows you an example of what that formatting looks like. The underlying command also has a drop down arrow that allows you to customize the lines appearance. Next you will see commands to apply text effects, highlight text and change the font color. Note that these final two commands work in the same way. You can click the button to change the color of the text to the one displayed on the button or click the drop down arrow to choose a new color. Finally, the option button opens the front dialog box. This box gives you control over all these settings as well as some advanced options. There are times when you might want to draw attention to a particular part of a document, you can do this using the text highlighting options. To highlight text, first select the text you want to highlight. Then click the text highlight color command on the home tab to apply the colors shown on the button. You can also click the drop down arrow and click a different color. You can also apply highlighting without selecting text. Just click the text highlight color command first and then use your cursor to click and drag over the text that you want to highlight. Click the text, highlight color command again to turn off this feature, you can remove highlighting by selecting the text and clicking no color on the text highlight color menu. The text highlight color command can also be found on the mini toolbar. You can also print a document with highlighted text. To show or hide highlighting for printing or display, click or uncheck the show highlighter marks, option in the display category of the word options, dialog box. Word can copy and paste text with or without formatting. But did you know that Word can also copy just the formatting from text. First select the text that has the formatting that you want to duplicate. Next, click the format painter icon on the home tab or the mini toolbar. You can also use the Control Shift and C and the Control Shift and V shortcuts. Your cursor will turn into a paintbrush. Now select the text that you want to format. The new text will take the format of the old text. The format painter command will also become deselected. To apply the same formatting to multiple items, double click the format painter and then select as many items as you want. When you are done formatting, click the format painter icon again to turn it off. Remember that formats are not stored on the clipboard and you can only copy formatting for one set of text at a time. The format painter captures all kinds of formats, including font formatting and paragraph formatting, such as borders, fills and shading, bullets and numbering and columns. You're now familiar with how to apply the wide variety of formatting options available inward to your document and you know how to manage the tools and features, great start.
