Office 2007 Bible

Character Formatting

There are at least six ways of directly applying various kinds of character formatting:

• Using the Font group on the Home tab

• The Font dialog box (Ctrl+D or Ctrl+Shift+F, or click the Font group Dialog Box Launcher)

• The Mini Toolbar (hover the mouse over selected text)

• Using shortcut keys

• With the Font group or components placed on the QAT

• Using the Language tool on the status bar

In this section, I’ll describe these methods and try to give you a sense of which ones to use. A lot depends on your working style, but it can also depend on what you happen to be doing. On any given day, I’ll probably use at least five of the six methods.

Formatting techniques

To apply character formatting, you have three basic options:

• Stream method— Apply formatting before you start typing a word or passage, and then turn it off when you’re done. For example, click the Bold tool, type a word, and then click the Bold tool again.

• Selection method— Select the text you want formatted by dragging over it or using a keyboard shortcut and/or the mouse, and then apply the formatting.

• Whole-word method— Click anywhere in a word and then choose the desired formatting.

Note

The whole-word method is settings dependent. It will work by default, but it will not work if you’ve turned off “When selecting, automatically select entire word” in the Editing Option section of the Advanced category in the Word Options dialog box.

It would be redundant to repeat the basic steps for each and every formatting ...