When text is selected you can apply character formatting to it such as changing the size, the style (bold, italic, underline) or the font face (Times Roman, Arial, etc.). Most of the formatting options are available from the Formatting toolbar; if you cannot see this select View/Toolbars (or right-click any visible toolbar) and select the toolbar you require by clicking on its tick box. Format/Font from the menus provides access to options not available in the toolbars such as subscript (CO2) and superscript (e=mc2).
More important than the mechanical actions of selecting text and applying formatting is the application of sound design skills when changing the appearance of text. Features such as italic, bold and underline should be used sparingly - if you find yourself using them a lot to emphasise words you probably need to change your writing style.
Some formatting applies to paragraph layout rather than the letters. Text in a paragraph can be aligned to the left or right or it can be centred. The term ‘justified’ or ‘justification’ is used to describe an imaginary straight vertical line on the left or right of a block of text. Fully justified text (like this paragraph) has straight left and right margins. Here are some addresses in three styles:
Primrose Street School
Primrose Street
Boventry
(left justified)
Primrose Street School
Primrose Street
Boventry
(right justified)
Primrose Street School
Primrose Street
Boventry
(centred)
The layouts shown above (left, right, centred) were achieved by clicking on the justification buttons to the left of the bold, italic and underline buttons. You do not need to select a single paragraph if you want to format it but to format lots of paragraphs at once you should select them first. A paragraph is created when you press the Enter key so an address consists of 4 or more paragraphs, all of which should be selected before justification or other formatting operations are performed.
Always write text before formatting it; if you are formatting a paragraph write the text and press Enter a couple of times before returning to the paragraph and formatting it. If you format first and then press Enter to move on you will find that the formatting is carried on to the next paragraph and you then have to change the settings.
This changes the gap between each line. Select Format/Paragraph and choose an option from the list. Some work requires double spacing and it is probably good practice to use at least 1.5 lines to leave room for marking - it also makes a little look slightly more!
Bullet and numbers are used to emphasise lists. Either set the first point to a bullet or numbered item and then use the Enter key to create extra ones or you can write out the list and then select it and choose the option you want. Pressing Enter twice quickly will stop the list formatting. You can change the style of bullets and numbers with Format/Bullets and Numbering.
To put a box around and/or shade one or more paragraphs click the borders button or choose Format/Borders and Shading.
Whenever you format something in a way you don’t like select Edit/Undo to put things back the way they were before you messed them up. Quicker still, click the Undo button. Use Edit/Redo or the Redo button to redo something. Use the Undo/Redo lists for multiple tasks.
Write a letter from yourself to a famous person of your choice on a topic of common interest. For example: to a sports manager regarding team choices; to the manager of a pop group regarding the members and material; to a business tycoon regarding an idea for making money; to a TV presenter or editor regarding content; or make up your own example.