Changing Colors and Justifying Text Alignment in Office 2007

French | Spanish | Portuguese | Italian | German | Japanese | Chinese | Korean | Russian | Arabic

Color can emphasize text. There are two ways to use color:  Change the color of the text (Font color).  Highlight the text with a different color (Text Highlight color).

Changing the color of text

When you change the color of text, you’re physically displaying a different color for each letter. Normally, Word displays text in black, but you can change the color to anything you want, such as bright red or dark green. If you choose a light color for your text, it may be hard to read against a white background. To change the color of text, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Select the text you want to color.

3. Click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the Font Color icon. A color palette appears.

4. Click a color. Word displays your selected text (from Step 1) in your chosen color. After you choose a color, that color appears directly on the Font Color icon. Now you can select text and click directly on the Font Color icon (not the downward-pointing arrow) to color your text.

Highlighting text Highlighting text mimics coloring chunks of text with a highlighting marker that students often use to emphasize passages in a book. To highlight text, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Select the text you want to highlight.

3. Click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the Text Highlight Color icon.

4. Click a color. Word highlights your selected text (from Step 2) in your chosen color.

5. Press Esc (or click the Text Highlight Color icon again) to turn off the

Text Highlight Color command. To remove a highlight, select the text and choose the same color again. If no text is selected and the Text Highlight Color currently displays a color you want to use (such as yellow), you can click the Text Highlight Color icon (not its downward-pointing arrow). This turns the mouse pointer into a marker icon. Now you can select and highlight text in one step.

Justifying Text Alignment

Word can align text in one of four ways:

 Left: Text appears flush against the left margin but ragged on the right margin.

 Center: Every line appears centered within the left and right margins.

  Right: Text appears flush against the right margin but ragged on the left margin.  

Justified: Text appears flush against both the left and right margins. To align text, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Move the cursor anywhere in the text you want to align.

3. Click one of the alignment icons, such as Center or Justify. Rather than click an alignment icon, you can use one of the alignment keystroke shortcuts as follows: Align Left (Ctrl+L), Center (Ctrl+E), Align Right (Ctrl+R), or Justify (Ctrl+J).

Adjusting Line Spacing Line spacing defines how close lines appear stacked on top of each other. To change the line spacing of text, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Select the text that you want to adjust the line spacing.

3. Click the Line Spacing icon.

4. Click the line spacing you want, such as 1 (single spacing) or 3(triple spacing).

If you click the More option in the pull-down menu, you can precisely define your own line spacing, such as 2.75 or 3.13.

   Making Lists
   Word  can organize and arrange text in three types of lists:
  Bullets (like this list)
  Numbering
  Multilevel list

You can create a list from scratch or convert existing text into a list. To create a list from scratch, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Move the cursor where you want to create a list.

3. Click the Bullets, Numbering, or Multilevel List icon. Word creates your list (bulleted or numbered).

4. Type your text and press Enter to create another blank item in your list.

5. Repeat Step 4 for each additional bullet or numbered item you want to make. If you have existing text, you can convert it into a list by following these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Select the text you want to convert into a list.

3. Click the Bullets, Numbering, or Outline Numbering icon. Word converts your selected text into your chosen list where each paragraph appears as a separate item in the list.

Indenting list items

After you create a list, you may want to indent one list item underneath another one. To indent an item in a list, follow these steps:

1. Move the cursor anywhere in the text in the list item you want to indent.

2. Press the Home key to move the cursor to the front of the line.

3. Press the Tab key to indent an item to the right (or press the Shift+Tab keystroke combination to indent an item to the left). When you indent a list, Word changes the number or bullet style to set the line apart from the rest of your list.

Converting list items back into text

If you have a list, you may want to convert one or more items back into ordinary text. To convert a list item into plain text, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Select the list items you want to convert into plain text.

3. Click the appropriate Bullets, Numbering, or Outline Numbering icon. If you want to convert a bullet list item into text, you would click the Bullets icon.

Customizing a list When you create a bullet or numbered list, you can choose from a variety of different styles. To choose a numbering style, follow these steps:

1. Click the downward-pointing arrow to the right of a list icon, such as the Bullet or Numbering icon. Make sure you don’t click the Numbering icon itself. A pull-down menu appears listing all the different numbering styles available.

2. Click the numbering style you want. The next time you click the Numbering icon, Word will use the numbering style you chose. The changes you make to the numbering or bullet style will only apply to your current document.

Renumbering numbered lists Number lists can cause special problems when dividing or copying them because the numbering may get out of sequence, or you may want to start numbering from a number other than one.

To change the starting number of a numbered list, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the item that you want to renumber. If you want to renumber your entire list, right-click the first item at the top of the numbered list.

2. Choose one of the following:

• Restart at 1: Changes the numbering of the current list item to 1, the list item directly below to 2, and so on. (This option does not appear if you right-click the first item in a number list.)

• Continue Numbering: Changes the number of the current list item to one greater than the last numbered list item earlier in the document.

• Set Numbering Value: Displays the Set Numbering Value dialog box, so you can change the current list item to a specific number such as 34 or 89.

Using the Ruler When you create a document, Word creates page margins automatically. However, if you want to adjust the left and right page margins, or define how far the Tab key indents text, you need to use the Ruler. By default, Word hides the Ruler to avoid cluttering up the screen. To display the Ruler, click the View Ruler icon. To hide the Ruler from view, just click the View Ruler icon again.

Adjusting left and right paragraph margins The Ruler defines the left and right margins for your paragraphs. To change these paragraph margins, follow these steps:

1. Make sure the Ruler appears visible.

2. Select any text.

3. Move the mouse pointer over the Left Indent icon on the Ruler, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the right to adjust the left paragraph margin.

4. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the left paragraph margin.

5. Move the mouse pointer over the Right Indent icon on the Ruler, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the left to adjust the right paragraph margin.

Word displays a dotted vertical line to show you where the new right paragraph margin will be.

6. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the right paragraph margin.

Defining indentation with the Ruler The two icons on the Ruler that define indentation are the First Line Indent and the Hanging Indent icons. The First Line Indent icon defines the position of (what else?) the first line of every paragraph. The Hanging Indent icon defines the position of every line of text except for the first line.

To define the first line and hanging indent, follow these steps:

1. Make sure the Ruler appears visible.

2. Select any text.

3. Move the mouse pointer over the Left Indent icon on the Ruler, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the right.

Word displays a dotted vertical line to show you where the new indentation margin will be.

4. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the left indentation of your text.

5. Move the mouse pointer over the First Line Indent icon on the Ruler, hold down the left mouse button, and drag (move) the mouse to the right (or left). Word displays a dotted vertical line to show you where the new first line indentation will be.

6. Release the left mouse button when you’re happy with the position of the first line indent position.

Showing Formatting Marks

If you need to precisely align text, you may want to display Word’s special formatting symbols. These symbols show you the exact position of spaces, tabs, and the ends of paragraphs.

To show (or hide) formatting marks, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office Button. A pull-down menu appears.

2. Choose Word Options. The Word Options dialog box appears.

3. Click Display. The Word Options dialog box displays check boxes to define which types of characters you want to make visible in your document.

4. Mark (click) the check boxes of the formatting symbols you want to display, such as Spaces or Tab Characters. Word displays your document with the formatting marks you want to display.

5. Click OK. For a faster way to turn on/off formatting marks, click the Home tab and then click the Show/Hide Paragraph Marks icon in the Paragraph group. This turns on all formatting marks, unlike Steps 1–5, which allow you to selectively choose which formatting marks to display, such as Spaces or Return characters.

Using Format Painter Formatting can be simple, such as underlining text, or fairly complicated, such as underlining text while also changing its font and font size. After you format one chunk of text a certain way, you may want to format other parts of your document the exact same way. Although you could take time to format text manually, it’s much easier to use Format Painter instead. Format Painter tells Word, “See the way I formatted that chunk of text over there? Apply that same formatting to a new chunk of text.” To use Format Painter, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Select the text that contains the formatting you want to copy.

3. Click the Format Painter icon.

4. Select the text that you want to format. (Move the mouse pointer over

the beginning of the text you want to format, hold down the left mouse button, and drag the mouse until you reach the end of the text you want to format.) Word applies your formatting to your text.

Using Styles As an alternative to choosing fonts, font sizes, and text styles (like bold) individually, Word offers several predefined formatting styles. To apply a style to your text, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab.

2. Select the text that you want to format.

3. Click the up/down arrows of the Styles scroll bar to scroll through the different styles available. Or click the More button to display a pulldown menu of all the Quick Formatting styles.

4. Move the mouse pointer over a style. Word displays what your text will look like if you choose this style.

5. Click the style you want to use, such as Heading 1, Title, or Quote. Word formats your text. For another way to use a style, click on the diagonal button that appears in the bottom-right corner of the Styles group. This will open a Styles window that displays a list of available styles. (You can click on the close box of the Styles window to make it go away when you’re done using it.)

Using Templates In case you need to format an entire document a certain way, you may want to use templates instead. Templates act like preformatted documents. Word comes with several templates, but Microsoft offers several through its Web site as well.