Creating Documents Using Automatic Formatting

Word can automatically perform some formatting functions for you as you type a document. For example, you can change straight quotation marks to smart (curly) quotes, hyphens to en-dashes or em-dashes, an asterisk before and after text to bold text, or an underscore before and after text to italic text. You can also type a number and text or a bullet and text to start a numbered or bulleted list. If you had AutoFormat disabled when you created the document, you still have the option of using the feature to find and correct errors in formatting.

Set Up Automatic Formatting

Click the Tools menu _' and then click AutoCorrect Options.

Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.

Select or clear the AutoFormat check boxes you want to use.

Click OK.

Your choices take effect, but they only apply to text you will be entering subsequently. In this case, AutoFormat does not correct errors retroactively.

Revise Documents with AutoFormat

Click the Format menu _' and then click AutoFormat.

Click Options.

Click the AutoFormat tab to select the formatting options you want.

Click the other tabs to make any additional changes to your document.

Click OK.

Click the AutoFormat Now option to have Word automatically format the document, or click the AutoFormat And Review Each Change option to review, and then accept or reject each change.

Click OK.

Click Review Changes to look at changes individually.

Click Style Gallery if you want to preview your document, and then click OK.