Basic IT Skills • Formatting your document

Basic IT Skills • Formatting your document
Font formatting
Font formatting changes the appearance of your text. Word enables the following font formatting to be applied:
Ø Different fonts and point sizes
The printer’s term font is used to refer to the different typefaces. These notes use several different typefaces, such as Palatino, Helvetica and courier.
Character size is measured in points. Most of the text in these notes is in eleven point type.
Ø Bold, italic, underlining, strike through, Small Caps, all caps
Ø Superscript or subscript
Ø Adjustable spacing between characters
When you are producing your own documents you should beware of introducing too great a variety. Just because it’s possible to have vast numbers of different typefaces, sizes and effects, it doesn’t mean it is desirable. For example, in these worksheets we have used three different fonts, as well as variations such as italics and bold and enlarged text. This has been done to draw attention to pieces of text that you are required to type, and to the names of special keys (such as Control) or Word commands (such as Format Font), but I feel the result is not pleasing to the eye, and for normal purposes this variety would probably be considered too much
Practice the techniques described here using the document file roughwrk.doc. When you are confident, try the font formatting exercise.
Using the Format Font dialog box
For most of your character formatting you will probably use the short-cuts described on page 2 but it is a good idea to look at the Font dialog box so as to see the full range of effects that you can achieve with character-formatting. Try things out to see what they look like. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Changing the format after typing
Ø Select the characters to be formatted
Ø Choose Font from the Format menu: the Font dialog-box will be displayed
Ø Choose the formats required — the Preview box will show the effects of the chosen formats
Ø Click OK
Changing formats as you type
Ø Choose Font from the Format menu to get the Font dialog-box again
Ø Choose the formats required — the Preview box will show the
Ø
Make sure the Standard and Formatting toolbars are visible. To check, choose Toolbars from the View menu, and in the sub-menu that appears make sure there are ticks in the boxes beside Standard and Formatting – if there aren’t, click in the boxes.Click OK
Ø Type the text that is to be specially formatted
Ø Choose Font from the Format menu
Ø Go back to the original formats
Ø Click OK
Shortcuts to character formatting
The following techniques may be used to apply or remove character formats quickly. Remember that when applying formats to text which has already been typed, you must first select the text to be formatted.
Control+bmeanshold down the Control key while typing bUsing the toolbar or keyboard
To apply or remove Click on or press
Bold Control+b
Italic Control+i
Underline Control+u
Changing fonts and sizes
Ø Select the piece of text you want to format
Ø Click on the arrow-head beside of the relevant box to display a list of the options available.
Font selection box
Font Size selection box
Ø Clicking the arrow beside the Font selection box will cause a list to be displayed as shown on the right
Ø If the font you want is not visible, scroll up and down the list to find it
Ø Choose the font you want by clicking on it
Ø Similarly you can choose the font size from a list that appears when you click on the Font Size box
Examples
Here are two different ways of producing the same result – which technique you use is largely a matter of taste. Try them both now, and see which feels the easier. The text that we want to end up with is this:
I have a bold cat, an italic dog, an underlined parrot and a large mouse.
(1) Format as you go
Ø Enter the first few words: I have a bold
Ø Press Control+b or click on
Ø Enter the word cat, which will appear in bold
Ø Press Control+b or click on to cancel the bold format
Ø Type a comma and then the next two words: , an italic
Ø Press Control+i or click on the italic button
Ø Type the word dog, which will appear in italics, or slanting type
Ø Press Control+i or click on the italic button to cancel the italic format
Ø Type a comma and then the next few words: , an underlined
Ø Press Control+u or click on the underlined button
Ø Type the word parrot which will appear underlined
Ø Press Control+u or click on the underlined button
Ø Type the next few words: and a large
Ø Choose 18 from the Font Size list
Ø Type the word mouse
Ø Press Control+spacebar to revert to the normal size and format for the paragraph
Ø Type the full-stop at the end of the sentence
(2) Type and then format
Ø Enter the entire sentence, without stopping to format anything:
I have a bold cat, an italic dog, an underlined parrot and a large mouse.
Ø Point with the mouse at the word cat and double-click to select the word
Ø Press Control+b or click on
Ø Point with the mouse at the word dog and double-click to select the word
Ø Press Control+i or click on the italic button
Ø Point with the mouse at the word parrot and double-click to select the word
Ø Press Control+u or click on the underline button
Ø Point with the mouse at the word mouse and double-click to select the word
Ø Hold down the Control key and press the greater-than (>) key repeatedly until you see the number 18 from the Font size list. You will need the Shift key as well as Control in order to get the >
Repeating and copying character formats
One drawback common to most, or all, word-processors is that you can’t select separate blocks of text for formatting all at the same time. The ability to repeat a series of formatting commands on separate blocks of text is therefore useful.
Repeat formatting
Ø Select the first block of text to be formatted
Ø Choose Font from the Format menu
Ø In the dialog-box, specify all the formatting commands that you want to apply to the selected text — then click OK
Ø Select the next block of text to which you want to apply the same series of commands
Ø Choose Repeat Font Formatting from the Edit menu or type Control+Y
Copying character formats
The “Format painter” enables you to “pick up” the formatting from one piece of text and apply the same formats to other pieces of text. This is useful when the format you are wanting to use is elaborate, such as bold, italic, enlarged text.
Ø Format a piece of text as bold, italic, enlarged
Ø Select the text you have just formatted
Ø Double-click on the Format Painter button
The mouse pointer will change to an I-beam plus a paintbrush.
Ø Select another piece of text which you want to format in the same way
Ø Select another piece of text which you want to have the same format
Ø Continue selecting the pieces of text which you want to have the same format: when you have finished, press Esc or click the Format Painter button again
The mouse-pointer will revert to its standard shape.
If you only want to copy the selected format once, instead of double-clicking on the Format Painter icon, click just once. Then you will not have to press Esc to revert to the standard mouse pointer.
Some things to work out for yourself
Try to work out how to do the following:
Ø If you format text as small caps how do you Get a Slightly Larger Letter at the start of sentences or at the beginning of Certain Words?
Ø What do you think is the key combination for reducing the font-size of the selected text?
Ø Experiment with the Change Case command
When you are happy with the techniques described in the previous pages, go on to try the character formatting exercise.

Paragraph formatting
In Word a paragraph is defined as any amount of text or graphics followed by a paragraph mark (shown as ¶ on the screen). The commands that control the layout of your text on the page work on a paragraph by paragraph basis. This means that, for example, if you want to double space some of your text you cannot do it for part of a paragraph, but only for one or more complete paragraphs. This will become clear as you work through this worksheet.
Use the document file roughwrk.doc to try out the techniques described in the notes, before you go on to work on the exercise on page Error! Bookmark not defined..
You must select the paragraphs that you want to format before you issue the formatting commands.
To select a single paragraph: place the cursor (the flashing insertion point) anywhere within the paragraph.
To select more than one paragraph: press the mouse-button and keep it pressed while dragging the highlight across at least part of every paragraph that you want to select.
The Format Paragraph dialog box
You can use the Paragraph command in the Format menu to specify the layout of selected paragraphs.
This section describes the formats that you can get using the Paragraph dialog-box. In practice you will usually use the short cuts described later in the worksheet.
Notice that there are two “tabs” in the Paragraph dialog-box: Indents and Spacing, and Line and Page Breaks.
Just now we shall only consider the Indents and Spacing tab. The other tab contain commands that enable you to control the way paragraphs are broken at the end of pages. If you would like an explanation of these things, ask the instructor or look in the on-line Help.
You can see the effect of your changes by looking in the “preview” section of the dialog-box. To apply the changes to the selected text in your document, click the OK button.
Alignment
Use the Alignment selection box to choose how the selected paragraphs will be aligned on the page. The options are:
aligned on the left, but ragged on the right
aligned on the right, ragged on the left
aligned on the centre ofthe line, ragged left and right
Fully aligned on both the right and the left (ie Justified). Many people consider that justified text is a great improvement over old-fashioned typewritten text.
Ø Click on the arrow beside the Alignment selection box
Ø Click on one of the options: Left, Right, Centred or Justified
Indentation
The indentation settings determine the indentation of the whole paragraph relative to the left and right margins. Note that the margins (which you can specify with the Page Setup command which you will use in Section 9) apply to the whole section or the whole document. Within a document you can indent particular paragraphs relative to the margins.
For example, if you have a left margin of 1" and choose a left indentation of ½" for a particular paragraph, that paragraph will be placed 1½" from the edge of the paper.
Ø To change the left and right indentation, click on the arrow-heads beside the Left and Right Indentation boxes
§ To increase the indentation, click on the upwards-pointing arrow
§ To decrease the indentation, click on the downwards-pointing arrow – you can have a negative indentation, which means that the paragraph will encroach on the margin
Ø There are various special indentation commands, of which the most commonly used is the one which indents the first line relative to the indentation of the paragraph as a whole
§ Click on the arrow beside the Special: box and choose First Line
§ Use the arrowheads to increase or decrease the indentation of the first line
If you have a left margin of 1", a left indentation for the paragraph of ½" and a first line indentation of ¼" it means that the first like of the paragraph begins 1¾" from the edge of the paper.
Ø Another special indentation command to try is Hanging, which causes the first line of the paragraph to hang out to the left of the rest of the paragraph
Spacing
You can specify how much white space is to appear between your paragraphs, and how much space is to be given to each line.
Between paragraphs (Before and After)
Ø Increase or decrease the space before or after the selected paragraphs by clicking on the arrowheads beside the Before and After boxes.
The spacing is measured in points. As you press the arrowheads the value goes up or down in steps of 6pt. There are 72 points to the inch. If you are using 12 point characters, 6 points corresponds to half a line. You are not obliged to work in units of half a line – you can delete the 6 and type in any value you wish, such as 9 for three-quarters of a line, or 24 for 2 lines.
If you did the simple text entry exercise earlier, you put extra white space between your paragraphs by pressing the Return key twice. It is much better to do it by using the Format Paragraph command and specifying a value in the Before or After box.
Line spacing
Specify either a measurement relative to the size of the text, or an absolute measurement.
Ø For an absolute measurement (this is preferable to choosing Single or Double or other relative measurements)
§ Click on the arrowhead beside the Line Spacing box
§ Choose At least or Exactly
§ Enter a value in the At: box – for example 24pt for double-spacing, or odd values such as 16pt – or use other units such as lines or inches: 2.25 li or 3.5in
If you choose At Least the measurement you give in the At box will be used, unless it is too small to accommodate any extra large character or graphic that is included in the line, in which case the spacing will be increased for the affected line.
Paragraphs
The formatting commands are linked to the end-of-paragraph mark (represented on the screen by the ¶ symbol). Illogically, if you delete a paragraph mark, to join two paragraphs together, the new combined paragraph takes the formatting of the first paragraph – the one whose paragraph mark was deleted.
When you press Return to start a new paragraph, the formatting of the old paragraph is carried on to the new.
You can approach the formatting of paragraphs in two ways.
Ø Either specify the format you want right at the beginning of your document and carry it on from paragraph to paragraph each time you press Return.
Ø Or you can change the formatting after you have typed the text by selecting the paragraphs you want to change and then carrying out the formatting commands.
Whichever you do, you can issue the formatting commands either in the way described above (using the Format Paragraph dialog-box) or by means of the short-cuts described below.
Shortcuts using the toolbar and ruler
Ø If you have not already done so, click OK or Cancel to close the Paragraph dialog-box
Before issuing any of the following commands, you must select the paragraphs to be formatted. A paragraph is selected when it either is highlighted or contains the flashing cursor.
Alignment To align Click on
Left
Centred
Right
Justified
Indentation (using the toolbar)
Ø To move the paragraph to the next default tab-stop click on
Tab-stops are positions marked on the ruler, and they occur, by default, ever half-inch. This will be explained later on.
Ø To move the paragraph back to the left click on
Indentation (using the ruler)
Ø If you can’t see the ruler at the top of the window, just below the toolbars, choose Ruler from the View menu
There are three indentation marks on the ruler. You move them by pointing with the mouse, pressing the mouse-button, and dragging along the ruler in either direction. Notice that the left indent marker consists of two parts, a square and a triangle.
left indent mark
first line mark
right indent mark
Ø To adjust the right indentation of your paragraph, drag the right indent marker along the ruler
Ø
Inches or Centimetres?
The instructions given here assume your ruler is marked in inches. If it is marked in centimetres, you can change it:
§ Choose Options from the Tools menu and click the General tab.
§ Click the arrowhead beside the Measurement Units box and choose Inches from the list.
§ Click OKTo adjust the indentation of the first line drag the first line mark along the ruler
Ø To adjust the left indentation of the whole paragraph except the first line, point at the triangular part of the left indent mark and drag it along the ruler
Ø To adjust the left indentation of the whole paragraph, including the first line, point at the square part of the left indent mark and drag it along the ruler
Practice with the ruler
To move the indentation marks along the ruler, point at the mark with the mouse, press the mouse button and keep it down as you drag to the left or right.
The left indent mark consists of two parts: the triangle and the square.
§ if you point at the square and drag, the first line mark will move with the left indent mark
§ if you point at the triangle and drag, the left indent mark will move on its own
If you have not yet modified the indents at all, you should see the first line mark immediately above the left indent mark, both at the zero mark on the ruler.
Ø Type a short paragraph – say about three lines of text (without pressing Return except at the end)
Ø Make sure the flashing insertion point is somewhere within your paragraph
Ø Point at the square portion of the left indent mark, press the mouse-button and drag the mark to the right – when you reach the 1" position, release the mouse-button – the top and bottom portions of the mark will move together, and your whole paragraph will be indented by 1"
Ø Now point at the first line mark, press the mouse-button, and drag to the left until you reach the ½" position. Now your first line will be indented by ½" from the margin, while the rest of the paragraph will be still indented by 1".
Ø Now point at the square portion of the left indent mark and drag it to the 1½" position on the ruler – because you are dragging the square the first line mark and the left indent mark will move at once, keeping the same distance apart, so that your first line is now indented by 1" from the margin and the rest of the paragraph is indented by 1½".
Ø Point at the triangular portion of the left indent mark and drag it until it is back in line with the first line mark, so that both are at the 1" position on the ruler.
Ø Place the flashing insertion point at the end of your paragraph of text, and then press Return. The next paragraph will inherit the indentation of the previous one. Type another couple of lines of text to verify this.
Ø Finally, we shall change the indentation of both paragraphs – so select both paragraphs and then drag the first line mark to the ½" position and the left indent mark to the zero position on the ruler.

Exercises: use the ruler and toolbar and the Format Paragraph dialog box to create paragraphs with the following formats. You can use the text in the roughwrk.doc file, to save yourself the trouble of typing.
1
2
This paragraph is what is known as a hanging paragraph. Its first line starts to the left of the remaining lines.
This paragraph is what is known as a hanging paragraph. Its first line starts to the left of the remaining lines.
This paragraph has a zero indentation on left and right.
This paragraph is indented by half an inch on either side to make it stand out from the paragraphs that come before and after.
This paragraph reverts to the indentation of the first paragraph.
3
4
This paragraph is double-spaced. That means there is a blank line space between the lines. A blank line space between the lines.
This paragraph is single-spaced and left-justified.
This paragraph is single-spaced and left justified and has one blank line before, between it and the paragraph in front.
Numbered or bulleted lists
Word has a facility for automatically formatting bulleted (or numbered) lists so that they will appear as hanging paragraphs:
Ø Select the paragraphs to be numbered or bulleted
Ø For a numbered list click on the Number button
Ø For a bulleted list click on the Bullet button
Ø To remove a bullets or numbers select the paragraphs and click the Bullet or Number button (depending on whether it is a bullet or a number that you are removeing)
Ø To convert bullets to numbers, select the bulleted paragraphs and click the Number button
Borders
Use the Borders and Shading command from the Format menu to put a border round selected paragraphs, a table, or selected cells within a table.
You can use the document roughwrk.doc on your floppy disk to practise these techniques, or else start a new document and type in some text of your own.
Put a box round selected paragraphs
Ø Select the paragraphs that you want to box
Ø Choose Borders and Shading from the Format menu and click Borders
Ø Under Setting click on the Box icon
Ø In the Style selection box choose the style of line that you want for your box. The list of styles has a scroll-bar so you can scroll down to see the full range
Ø Choose a width from the selection-box
Ø Click OK
Lines beside, above or below paragraphs
You can place lines on just one or two sides instead of all four.
Ø Select more than one paragraph
Ø Choose Borders and Shading from the Format menu and click on the Borders tab
Ø Select the style of line
Ø Click on None in the Setting section
Ø In the Preview section, click on the left edge of the diagram to get a line down the left side of the paragraphs
Ø You can select a different line style for other sides: select the line-style before clicking on the preview diagram
Ø You can also insert a border between the selected paragraphs
Ø Click OK when you have finished
Space between text and border
If you want the line to be a little distance away from the text, do the following:
Ø If they are not already selected, select the paragraphs concerned
Ø Choose Borders and Shading from the Format menu and click on the Borders tab
Ø You have already placed the line, so now click the Options button
Ø Increase the value in the relevant box (in this case the box labelled Left because the line is on the left of the paragraph)
Ø Click OK and then OK again
Keep with next
You need to avoid a page break between a heading and the text that follows it. The way to make sure you don’t have unwanted page breaks is to use the “keep with next” and “keep lines together” options.
Ø Type a heading consisting of a few words, such as This is a Heading
Ø Select Paragraph from the Format menu
Ø Click on the Line and Page Breaks tab
Ø Select the Keep with Next option
This will ensure that there is no page break between the heading and the text after it. “Keep lines together” ensures that there is no break within a particular paragraph.
Ø Click OK
If you are displaying non-printing characters, a small black square will appear beside the paragraph, indicating that you have applied the Line and Page Breaks formatting.