Format text

You format text on the Home tab. The Font group changes letters. The Paragraph group changes whole paragraphs.

Choose what to change

• Letters: select the text first. If you only click in a word, JeffPub changes that word and the text you type next.
• Paragraphs: click in a paragraph, or select several. Alignment, spacing, and indents change every paragraph you touch.
• Everything in a box: select the box, not the text.

Fonts, size, and style

1. In Home > Font, pick a font from the font box. The Scheme Fonts at the top follow the publication's font scheme. See Color and font schemes.
2. Type a size in points in the size box, or choose one. A point is 1/72 of an inch.
3. Use Grow Font and Shrink Font to step the size up or down.

Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Subscript, and Superscript are one click each. The arrow beside Underline offers dotted, dashed, and wavy lines. Clear All Formatting puts text back to what its style says. Change Case offers sentence case, lowercase, UPPERCASE, capitalizing each word, toggle case, Small Caps, and All Caps.

To set many things at once, click the corner button of the Font group (or press Ctrl+Shift+F) to open the Font dialog.

Color

Click Font Color and pick a scheme, standard, or recent color. More Colors… opens the full picker, Eyedropper picks up a color from the page, and Tints… lists lighter and darker versions of a scheme color. Automatic brings back the style's color.

Character spacing

Character Spacing moves letters closer together or farther apart. Choose Very Tight, Tight, Normal, Loose, or Very Loose. More Spacing… opens the Character Spacing dialog. There you can also stretch letters, adjust kerning (the gap between two letters), and change word spacing.

Alignment, spacing, and indents

• Align Left, Center, Align Right, Justify, and Distribute set how lines line up. Distribute is like Justify, but it also stretches the last line.
• Line Spacing sets the gap between lines. Paragraph Spacing sets the gap before or after a paragraph.
• Increase Indent and Decrease Indent move a paragraph by a quarter inch.
• For exact numbers, choose Paragraph… in either spacing menu, or click the corner button of the Paragraph group.

Effects, drop caps, and typography

On the Text Box tab, Effects adds shadow, outline, emboss, engrave, glow, and gradient fills to letters. A drop cap is a large first letter: click in the paragraph and choose Text Box > Typography > Drop Cap. Pick 2 to 5 lines, or Custom Drop Cap…. The rest of Typography, such as ligatures and stylistic sets, depends on what the font offers.

Copy formatting with the button

1. Click in text that looks the way you want.
2. Click Home > Clipboard > Copy Formatting.
3. Click the text box you want to change.

The whole box takes on the look of the first text, plus its fill and outline. Hold Shift as you click the button to keep painting. Press Esc to stop.

From the keyboard: select the text or object whose look you want and press Ctrl+Shift+C to copy its formatting. Then select other text, or other objects, and press Ctrl+Shift+V to give them that look.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Bold, Italic, Underline: Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, Ctrl+U
• Align Left, Center, Align Right, Justify: Ctrl+L, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+R, Ctrl+J
• Grow Font, Shrink Font: Ctrl+Shift+>, Ctrl+Shift+<
• Clear All Formatting: Ctrl+Space

Related

• Bullets, numbering, and tabs
• Use styles
• The Home tab