Text Alignments

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In this chapter, we will discuss text alignments in Word 2010. There are four types of paragraph alignment available in Microsoft Word — left-aligned, center-aligned, rightaligned, and justified.

Left-Aligned Text

A paragraph's text is left aligned when it is aligned evenly along the left margin. Here is a simple procedure to make a paragraph text left-aligned.

Step 1 − Click anywhere on the paragraph you want to align and click the Align Text Left button available on the Home tab or simply press the Ctrl + L keys.

Center Aligned Text

A paragraph's text will be said center aligned if it is in the center of the left and right margins. Here is a simple procedure to make a paragraph text center aligned.

Step 1 − Click anywhere on the paragraph you want to align and click the Center button available on the Home tab or simply press the Ctrl + E keys.

Right-Aligned Text

A paragraph's text is right-aligned when it is aligned evenly along the right margin. Here is a simple procedure to make a paragraph text right-aligned.

Step 1 − Click anywhere on the paragraph you want to align and click the Align Text Right button available on the Home tab or simply press the Ctrl + R keys.

Justified Text

A paragraph's text is justified when it is aligned evenly along both the left and the right margins. Following is a simple procedure to make a paragraph text justified.

Step 1 − Click anywhere on the paragraph you want to align and click the Justify button available on the Home tab or simply press the Ctrl + J keys.

When you click the Justify button, it displays four options, justify, justify low, justify high and justify medium. You need to select only the justify option. The difference between these options is that low justify creates little space between two words, medium creates a more space than low justify and high creates maximum space between two words to justify the text.

Change Text Color

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In this chapter, we will discuss how to change text colors in Word 2010. We will also understand how to mark text which should look like it was marked with a highlighter pen. In addition, we will learn how to apply different effects on portions of text.

Change Font Colors

The text that we type comes in black by default; you can always change the color of the font to a color of your choice. It is very simple to change the text color by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text the font color of which needs to be changed. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Font Color button triangle to display a list of colors. Try to move your mouse pointer over different colors and you will see the text color will change automatically. You can select any of the colors available by simply clicking over it.

If you click at the left portion of the Font Color button, the selected color gets applied to the text automatically; you need to click over the small triangle to display a list of colors.

If you do not find a color of your choice, you can use the More Colors option to display the color pallet box which allows you to select a color from a range of colors.

Highlight Text with Colors

You can highlight a selected portion of text using any color and it will look like it was marked with a highlighter pen. Usually we highlight a text using yellow color. It is very simple to highlight a portion of text with a color by following two simple steps

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that needs to be highlighted with color. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Text Highlight Color button triangle to display a list of colors. Try to move your mouse pointer over different colors and you will see the text color changes automatically. You can select any of the colors available by simply clicking over it.

If you click at the left portion of the Text Highlight Color button, then the selected color gets applied to the portion of text automatically; you need to click over the small triangle to display a list of colors.

Apply Text Effects

Microsoft word provides a list of text effect which add to the beauty of your document, especially to the cover page or the headings of the document. This is very simple to apply various text effects by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that you want to change to a bold font. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Text Effect button to display a list of effects including shadow, outline, glow, reflection etc. Try to move your mouse pointer over different effects and you will see the text effect will change automatically. You can select any of the text effect available by simply clicking over it.

Change Text Case

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In this chapter, we will discuss how to change text cases in Word 2010. You can also capitalize a character you are typing by pressing and holding the SHIFT key while you type. You can also press the CAPS LOCK to have every letter that you type capitalized, and then press the CAPS LOCK again to turn off capitalization.

Change Text to Sentence Case

A sentence case is the case where the first character of every sentence is capitalized. It is very simple to change the selected portion of text into sentence case by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that that needs to be put in sentence case. You can use any of the text selection methods to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Change Case button and then select the Sentence Caseoption to capitalize the first character of every selected sentence.

Change Text to Lowercase

Changing text to lowercase is where every word of a sentence is in lowercase. It is very simple to change a selected portion of text into lowercase by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that needs to be put in lowercase. You can use any of the text selection methods to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Change Case button and then select Lowercase option to display all the selected words in lowercase.

Change Text to Uppercase

This is where every word of a sentence is in uppercase. It is very simple to change selected text into uppercase by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that you want to change to a bold font. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Change Case button and then select UPPERCASE option to display all selected words in all caps. All characters of every selected word will be capitalized.

Capitalize Text

A capitalize case is the case where every first character of every selected word is in capital. This is very simple to change selected text into capitalize by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that needs to be capitalized. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Change Case button and then select the Capitalize Each Word option to put a leading cap on each selected word.

Toggle the Text

The Toggle operation will change the case of every character in reverse way. A capital character will become a character in lower case and a character in lower case will become a character in upper case. It is very simple to toggle case of the text by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that you want to change to a bold font. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Change Case button and then select the tOGGLE cASEoption to change all the words in lowercase into words in uppercase; the words in uppercase words change to words in lowercase.

Text Decoration

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In this chapter, we will discuss text decoration in Word 2010. When we use the term decorate, it means decorate by putting the text in italics, underlining the text or making it bold to look more fancy and much more. In this chapter, we will also learn how we can strikethrough a text.

Making text bold

We use bold text to give more emphasis on the sentence. It is very simple to change a selected portion of text into bold font by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that the font of which needs to be made bold. You can use any of the text selection methods to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Font Bold [ B ] button in the Home tab Font group, or simply use Ctrl + B keys to make the selected portion of text bold.

Making Text Italic

An italic text appears with a small inclination and we use the italicized text to differentiate it from other text. It is very simple to change the selected text into italic font by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text the font of which needs to be italicized. You can use any of the text selection methods to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click the Font Italic [ I ] button in the Home tab Font group, or simply use the Ctrl + I keys to convert the portion of text in italic font.

Underline the Text

An underlined portion of text appears with an underline and we use the underlined portion of text to make it more distinguished from other text. It is very simple to change the selected text into underlined font by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text which needs to be underlined. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click Font Underline [ U ] button in the Home tab Font group, or simply use the Ctrl + U keys to put an underline under the text.

Strikethrough the Text

Strikethrough portion of text will look as if a line has been drawn through the middle of it. A strikethrough portion of text indicates that it has been deleted and that the portion of text is not required any more. It is very simple to change a selected portion of text into a strikethrough portion of text by following two simple steps −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that you want to change to a bold font. You can use any of the text selection method to select the portion of text.

Step 2 − Click Font Strikethrough [ abc ] button in the Home tab Font group to put a line in the middle of the text which is called strikethrough the text.

Setting Text Fonts

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In this chapter, we will discuss how to set the text fonts and size in Word 2010. Microsoft word allows you to use different fonts with different size. You can change your document's appearance by changing the fonts and their size. Usually you use different fonts for paragraphs and headings. It is important to learn how to use different fonts. This chapter will teach you how to change a font and its size in simple steps.

Change the Font Type & Size

We will understand in brief the font buttons that we will further use in this tutorial. Following is a screenshot to show you a few font related buttons.

Step 1 − Select the portion of text the font of which needs to be changed and click the Home tab. Now click the Font Type button to list down all the fonts available as shown below.

Step 2 − Try to move the mouse pointer over the listed fonts. You will see that the text font changes when you move the mouse pointer over different fonts. You can use the Font Scroll Bar to display more fonts available. Finally select a desired font by clicking over the font name in the list. We have selected MV Boli as the font for our sample text.

Step 3 − Similar way, to change the font size, click over the Font Size button which will display a font size list. You will use the same procedure to select a desired font size that you have used while selecting a font type.

Use Shrink and Grow Buttons

You can use a quick way to reduce or enlarge the font size. As shown in the first screenshot, the Shrink Font button can be used to reduce the font size whereas the Grow Font button can be used to enlarge the font size.

Try to click either of these two buttons and you will see the effect. You can click a single button multiple times to apply the effect. Each time you click either of the buttons, it will enlarge or reduce the font size by 1 point.

Clear Formatting Options

All of the setting can be reset to plain text, or the default formatting. To reset text to default settings −

Step 1 − Select the portion of text that you want to reset.

Step 2 − Click the Clear Formatting button in the Home tab Font group, or simply use Ctrl + SPACEBAR.

Undo Changes

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In this chapter, we will discuss how to undo and redo changes in Word 2010. Microsoft word provides two important features called the Undo and the Repeat or Redo. The Undo feature is used to undo the previous action and the Repeat or Redo feature is used to repeat the previous action.

For example, if you mistakenly delete text, you can use the Undo feature to recover it. In a similar way, if you delete a character and you want to delete more characters then you can use the Repeat operation.

How to use Undo & Repeat operations

You can access the Undo and Repeat buttons from the Quick Access toolbar. You should make a note that the Repeat button is also called Redo button and both the operations have the same meaning.

Here is the simple procedure to apply undo or repeat (redo) operations −

Step 1 − Let us type some text in a blank document. Now click the Repeat(Redo) button and you will see that Word will repeat the same operation for you.

Step 2 − Now to examine the undo operation, let us delete the last word operation character by character so that you have the following text remaining in the line.

Step 3 − Let us try to click the Undo button one by one. You will see that Word will recover all the deleted characters one by one after performing a few undo operations.

Shortcuts to use Undo & Repeat operations

Though you can access the Undo and Repeat commands from the Quick Access toolbar, but because these commands are the most frequently used commands, we recommend you memorize their keyboard shortcuts which are as follows −

S.No	Shortcuts & Operation
1	Ctrl + Z Undoes the previous action.
2	Ctrl + Y Repeats the previous action.

Note that if the previous action was Undo, Ctrl+Y redoes the Undone action.

Special Symbols

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In this chapter, we will discuss the use of special symbols in Word 2010. Your keyboard may not have many characters available but you want to use those characters in your document; in such situations, you have the option to insert Special Symbols the way we will further understand in this chapter.

To insert symbols that are occasionally used, follow the steps in this section. If you find yourself using a particular symbol frequently, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it.

Insert Special Symbols

Here is a simple procedure to apply zoom-in or zoom-out operation using the View tab −

Step 1 − To insert a special symbol, bring your cursor at the place where you want to insert the symbol. Click the Insert tab. You will find two options under the symbol button (a) Equation and (b) Symbols. Click either of these two options based on your requirement. You will further use equations while preparing mathematical or scientific or any similar document. For now, we are going to understand the use of the Symbol button as shown below.

Step 2 − When you click the Symbol button, a small list of symbols will appear as shown below.

Step 3 − Now click on any of the available symbols in the box to insert that in your document at the selected location. If you do not find the desired symbol in this small box, then you can click at the More Symbols option to have a wide range of symbols as shown below in the symbol dialog box. You can select any of the symbol and then click the Insert button to insert the selected symbol.

Assign Shortcut Key

You can assign a keyboard shortcut to type any of the available symbol. Following are the steps to assign Ctrl + Q key to insert the © symbol which is one of the available symbols in the special symbols list −

Step 1 − Assume you already have the following symbol dialog box opened.

Step 2 − Click the symbol for which a shortcut key needs to be assigned. Now click Shortcut Key button which will display the following Customize Keyboard dialog box.

Step 3 − Now type the selected shortcut key in the shortcut key box. You press Ctrl + Q and then click the Assign button to assign the shortcut key. You will see that the selected key will be added in the list of assigned keys. Finally, use the Close button to close the dialog box.

Step 4 − Now try to type Ctrl + Q using the keyboard directly and you will find that you are able to type © symbol without going into the symbol dialog box.