What is text formatting?
• You can format a document at different levels within Microsoft Word. The most basic level is called text formatting. This relates to formatting characters and words within a document and covers the font type, font size, font colour and font attributes such as bold italic or underlining.
Font type
• Open a document called Text formatting.
• By default Microsoft Word 2007 uses a font called Calibri.
• Make sure that the Home tab is displayed.
• Select the paragraph starting with the text FONT TYPE within your document (by quickly clicking three times within the paragraph) and experiment with applying different font types. To do this, make sure that the Home tab is selected, and then click on the down arrow, to the right of the text within the Font control.

• You will be able to select a different font from the drop down list supplied.
• Experiment with formatting your paragraphs using different fonts. You can also experiment with applying different font types to individual words or sentences. TIP: This is just an exercise. In real life do not have lots of different fonts all mixed up within a document. It looks cheap and conveys a very bad visual impression!
Font size
• The font size refers to the height of the text. Below 8 pt font size text is almost unreadable, so try and use a font size that is easy to read on the screen and also easy to read when printed.
• Make sure that the Home tab is displayed. Select the paragraph starting with FONT SIZE. Click on the down arrow to the right of the Font Size control to display a drop down from which you can select the required font size. Set the font size to 20.
Grow Font and Shrink Font icons
• Experiment with selecting text and then clicking on the Grow Font and Shrink Font icons.
Font size keyboard shortcut
• Make sure that the paragraph starting with the text ‘FONT SIZE’ is selected. Press down the Ctrl key and while keeping the Ctrl key pressed down, press the ‘closing square brackets’ key ]. While keeping the Ctrl key pressed down, repeatedly press the ‘closing square brackets’ key. As you can see, each time you press the ] key, the text gets bigger. To make the selected text smaller, use the Ctrl+[ keys.
Bold, italic or underline
• You can add emphasis to parts of your text by displaying them in Bold, Italic or Underlined, or in a combination of these attributes. Select a word within the paragraph relating to bold, italic or underline. TIP: To select a word, double click on the word.
• To format the selected word as bold, italic or underlined, click on the icons displayed on the Home tab. TIP: You can combine these attributes by clicking on the Bold icon and then the Italic icon.
• To remove this formatting from a word, Select the word and re-click on the Bold, Italic or Underline icon.
• Experiment with applying this formatting to words or entire paragraphs.
Subscript and superscript
• Sometimes you need to display a character above or below the normal text line. Superscript refers to characters displayed above the normal line. An example would be the famous Einstein equation below. Subscript refers to text displayed below the normal line of text. An example would be the chemical formula for water.
• Within the paragraph relating to subscript and superscript, select the 2 within Einstein’s equation. To format this as superscript, click on the Superscript icon in the Font section of the Home tab.
• Select the 2 within the formula for water. To format this as subscript, click on the Subscript icon in the Font section of the Home tab.

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