Thinkabara

📝 Microsoft Word for Beginners · Lesson 2 of 9

Formatting text

Google Classroom

Font, size, bold, color and the Format Painter.

Select first, then format

Every format in Word applies to what is selected. Drag over the text with the mouse, or double-click a word (selects the word) and triple-click (selects a whole paragraph). Ctrl+A selects the whole document.

The tools on the Home tab, Font group

  1. The font list: choose a font, such as Calibri, Times New Roman or Arial
  2. Font size: 11–12 for normal text, 16–20 for a title
  3. B for bold, I for italic, U for underline
  4. Font color (the A with a colored bar) and Text Highlight Color (the marker)

Shortcuts

Ctrl+BBold
Ctrl+IItalic
Ctrl+UUnderline
Ctrl+]Make the font one point bigger
Ctrl+[Make the font one point smaller

Format Painter

Formatted a word exactly the way you like and want the same look somewhere else? Click the formatted word, click the paintbrush “Format Painter” on the Home tab, then drag over the new text. Double-clicking the paintbrush keeps it on for several places; Esc turns it off.

Tip

💡 Less is more: one or two fonts in a document, and bold only for what really matters. A page with ten colors is hard to read.

✏️ Practice: your turn

  1. Write a title and three lines about your favorite animal
  2. Make the title size 18 and bold
  3. Highlight one important word in yellow
  4. Copy the title’s formatting to another line with the Format Painter

✏️ No Word on this computer? Practice in our free online document editor

🧠 Quick quiz

Answer all 4 questions correctly to mark this lesson as done.

1. What do you need to do before making text bold?
2. What does a triple-click select?
3. Which shortcut makes text bold?
4. What is the Format Painter for?

0 of 4 correct

All lessons in Microsoft Word for Beginners

  1. ✍️ 1. Your first documentOpen a document, type, save and undo a mistake
  2. 🎨 2. Formatting textFont, size, bold, color and the Format Painter
  3. 📐 3. Paragraphs, alignment and listsAlignment, bullets, numbering, indents and line spacing
  4. 🏷️ 4. Headings and stylesHeading 1 and Heading 2, the Navigation Pane and updating a style
  5. ▦ 5. TablesInsert a table, add rows and columns, design and merge cells
  6. 🖼️ 6. Pictures and shapesInsert a picture, resize it, wrap text and add alt text
  7. 📄 7. A neat pageMargins, orientation, page breaks, headers and page numbers
  8. 🎓 8. A paper ready to hand inTitle page, table of contents, footnotes, spell check and PDF
  9. ⚡ 9. Time-saving tricksFind and replace, paste without formatting, templates and sharing