Using More Advanced Formatting

As you saw in Chapter 2, a well-designed document uses formatting to provide visual cues about its structure. In this topic, you ll explore some more formatting techniques as you combine the FAQ about the Glacier series of sleeping bags from Chapter 2 and the memo from this chapter to make a flyer.

Inserting a File into a Document

The easiest way to combine two or more documents is to insert one file into the other. Follow these steps to insert the memo into the FAQ to create a new flyer document:

1. Open the Frequently Asked Questions document you created in Chapter 2.

2. To safeguard the original FAQ file, save a new copy of the file as Flyer .

3. Press Ctrl+Home to make sure the insertion point is at the top of the document.

4. On the Insert menu, click File .

   Word displays the Insert File dialog box shown in this graphic:

   

5. Select Glacier Memo from the list of documents, and click Insert to merge its file into Flyer.

6. Press Ctrl+Home to move to the top of the combined document, and select and delete the entire memo header.

7. Delete the blank paragraph at the end of the memo, leaving only the heading, the two main paragraphs, and the paragraph mark between them.

8. Save the combined document.

   The graphic on the next page shows the results so far.

   The Insert menu

   You can use the Insert menu to add several types of objects to your documents. In later chapters, we discuss several of these options, but you might want to use a practice document to explore these commands on your own.

    
   

   From now on, we won t tell you when to save the flyer, but you should do so at regular intervals to safeguard your work.

Making a Title Stand Out

Microsoft Office Specialist: Apply and modify text formats Modify paragraph formats

As you already know, you apply character formatting when you want to change the appearance of individual characters . In this procedure you ll focus on the titles of the two articles in the new flyer. Not only can you change the font and size of titles and headings, but you can draw attention to them by adding special effects, drawing lines above and below or to the left and right of them, surrounding them with different styles of borders, or applying color or shading in various ways. Follow these steps to experiment with some of these options:

1. Move to the top of the document, and select the title of the memo, including its paragraph mark.

   Highlighting text

   One way to draw attention to a text item is to highlight it, just as you would highlight printed text with a highlighter pen. To highlight text, select it and on the Formatting toolbar, click theHighlight button s down arrow, and click the highlighting color you want.

    
   Rebreaking titles and headings

   As you create titles and headings for your Word documents, you might find that some of them would be more aesthetically pleasing if they broke to multiple lines or broke in a different spot. To manually break a title or heading (or any other line of text), click an insertion point where you want the break to occur and press Shift+Enter. Word inserts a line break, which it designates on the screen with a bent-arrow symbol. Lines that you break manually are treated just like word-wrapped lines; they have the same amount of line spacing, and they don t include any extra space above or below them.

    

2. Center the title, and change its font to Verdana .

3. Select the title of the FAQ, including its paragraph mark, and center it.

4. With the title of the FAQ still selected, click Font on the Format menu.

   Word displays the dialog box shown in this graphic:

   

   The dialog box reflects the current character formatting of the selected title. It also provides several options not available on the Formatting toolbar. You can use the options available in the Effects area of the Font dialog box to add such effects as superscript, subscript, outlining, and embossing to the selected text. You can see a preview of these effects in the Preview box before applying them.

5. Scroll the Font list, and click Times New Roman .

6. In the Effects area, select the Small caps check box, and then click OK .

   Word formats the title so that the first letters of all the words are large capitals and the rest of the letters are small capitals. If you want, you can experiment with some of the other options in the Font dialog box before moving on to put a border around the FAQ title.

7. With the title still selected, click Borders and Shading on the Format menu.

   Applying animated text effects

   You can use the options available in the Effects area of the Font dialog box to add such effects as superscript, subscript, outlining, and embossing to the selected text. You can see a preview of these effects in thePreview box before applying them. Click the Text Effects tab to display animated effects. (Animated effects work only if the document is going to be viewed on screen or as a web document.) Click an option in the Animations list to see its preview in the box below it, and then click OK to apply the effect.

    

   The dialog box shown in this graphic is displayed:

   

8. Click the down arrow to the right of the Width box, select the 1 ½ pt single-line option, and click the Box setting.

   Word displays a preview of your selected settings on the right side of the dialog box.

9. Click the Shading tab, and in the Fill area, click a light color.

   We left the box white for legibility.

10. Click OK , and then click away from the title to remove the highlighting.

    The results are shown in this graphic:

    
    Painting formats

    To format a block of text with settings that you have already applied to another block, you can copy all the formatting at once. Select the text whose formatting you want to copy, click the Format Painter button on the Standard toolbar, and then select the text you want to format. Word duplicates the formatting for the new selection.To format more than one block of text, double-click the FormatPainter button, select each block in turn, and then click the button to turn it off.

     
    AutoFormat

    Word s AutoFormat feature analyzes all or part of a document and automatically assigns styles to its paragraphs based on how the paragraphs are used and how they relate to other paragraphs. Word doesn t always reach the right conclusions after analyzing a document, but it usually gives you a good starting point for further formatting. To try this, on the Format menu, click AutoFormat. (To format only part of a document, select that part first.) In the AutoFormat dialog box, choose from three types of document in the drop-down list: general documents, letters, and e-mail messages. Then select the AutoFormat now option to accept all the formatting or the AutoFormat and review each change option to review and accept or reject each format in turn. You can use the Undo button to reverse the formatting if AutoFormat completely misses the mark.

     

    If you want, you can experiment with the other border and shading options.

Formatting Text as Multiple Columns

Microsoft Office Specialist: Apply and modify column settings

Newsletters and flyers often feature multi-column layouts like those of magazines and newspapers. These layouts give you more flexibility when it comes to the placement of elements on the page, and they are often more visually interesting than single-column layouts. With Word, you create this type of layout by using sections.

Using section breaks

When applying different formatting ”such as changing the number of columns or setting different margins ”to only part of a document, Word designates the beginning and end of that part with section breaks that show up in some views as double dotted lines. You can manually insert section breaks by clicking Break on the Insert menu, selecting one of the options in the Section break types area, and clicking OK. You can have the new section start at the top of the next new column, the next new page, the next even page, or the next odd page; or you can have the new section continue immediately after the preceding section. If you need to change the type of section break, on the File menu, click Page Setup. Then on the Layout tab, change the setting in the Section start drop-down list to the one you want, and click OK.

To change the layout of a particular document section, such as its margin settings, click anywhere in the appropriate section and on the File menu, click Page Setup. On the Margins tab, change the settings as necessary, verify that This section is the setting in the Apply to drop-down list, and click OK.

To delete a section break, select it and press Delete. Bear in mind that section breaks control the formatting of the preceding section of text. If you delete a section break, the preceding text becomes part of the next section and reflects its formatting.

 

Setting up multiple columns for an entire document is very easy. You simply click the Columns button on the Standard toolbar and select the number of columns you want. If you want only part of a document to have a multi-column layout, you select that part of the document before clicking the Columns button. Follow these steps to arrange the flyer text in columns.

1. Click an insertion point to the left of What is the Glacier Series of sleeping bags?. Then hold down the Shift key, and click to the right of the period following the last sentence of the How do I order? paragraph. (Don t select the paragraph mark.)

   Word highlights the text between the two clicks.

2. Double-click the Standard toolbar s move handle to show all the buttons , and then click the Columns button.

   Word drops down the grid of columns shown here:

   

3. Point to the first column, move the mouse pointer over to the third column, and click once.

   Word inserts a section break before the selected text to preserve the formatting of the text preceding the selection. It also inserts another section break at the end of the selected text and reformats the selection so that it snakes across the first and second pages in three columns.

4. Press Home to move to the beginning of the selection, and release the selection.

   The document now looks like the one shown here:

   

   Using the Columns button on the Standard toolbar, you can select only up to six evenly spaced columns. To format columns precisely, on the Format menu, click Columns to dis- play the Columns dialog box. Here you can define the number of columns, the format, the width, the spacing, and whether you want to show a dividing line between the columns. As you make your selections, Word displays a preview of the column formatting in the Preview box. Click OK when the columns look the way you want them.

Creating a List

Microsoft Office Specialist: Apply bullet, outline, and numbering formats to paragraphs

Word has two built-in list formats: one for numbered lists and one for bulleted lists. You use a numbered list when the order of the items in the list has to be sequential, as in the numbered steps in this course. You use a bulleted list when the items are not sequential and their order is not important.

The last paragraph of the FAQ contains three items that would stand out better if they were formatted as a numbered list. Follow these steps to apply the numbered list format to these items:

1. Use the scroll bar to display the last paragraph.

2. Click an insertion point to the left of the sentence that begins You can buy them , and press Enter .

3. Type 1 , a period, and a space.

4. Click an insertion point to the left of the sentence that begins You can order them , and press Enter .

   Ending a list

   To end a numbered or bulleted list and return to regular formatting, on the Formatting toolbar, click the Numbering or Bullets button to toggle the formatting off. Alternately, you can pressEnter twice or press Backspace to delete the last bullet or number in a list.

    

   Information about : Automatically formatting text, page 95

   Because the previous paragraph starts with a number, Word adds a 2 and a period in front of the new paragraph and gives both numbered paragraphs a hanging-indent format. This feature is called AutoFormat As You Type .

5. Click to the left of the sentence that begins You can also place orders , and press Enter . Then repeat this step for the sentence that begins You can e-mail your order .

   The numbered list now has four items in skinny columns.

6. Point to the number 1, and click once.

   Word selects all four numbered list items.

7. On the Format menu, click Bullets and Numbering , and then click the Customize button.

   Word displays the options shown in this graphic:

   
   Converting text to a list

   To convert existing text paragraphs to a numbered or bulleted list, select the paragraphs and on the Formatting toolbar, click the Numbering or Bullets button. You can also select the text, click Bullets and Numbering on the Format menu, and then select the list option you want.

    
   Using bulleted lists

   To create a bulleted list, select the paragraphs you want to add bullets to and on the Formatting toolbar, click the Bullets button. You can also type an asterisk (*) and a space at the beginning of a new paragraph, and Word will convert the paragraph to a bulleted list as soon as you press Enter. By default, Word precedes each bulleted list item with a large dot. To change this symbol, select the bulleted paragraphs, click Bullets and Numbering on the Format menu, and select one of the seven standard symbols. You can modify the format of bulleted and numbered lists by selecting a format on their respective tabs, clicking the Customize button, making your changes, and clicking OK. You can also click the Picture button to insert graphical bullets.

    

8. In the Number position area, change the setting in the Aligned at box to 0".

9. In the Text position area, change the setting in the Tab space after box to 0.25" , and change the setting in the Indent at box to 0.25" .

   The image in the Preview box adjusts as you change the settings.

10. Click OK.

    Instead of the numbers being indented a quarter inch and the items being indented a half inch, the numbers are now flush with the column and the items are indented a quarter inch, as shown in this graphic:

    
    Automatic formatting

    By default, Word automatically formats certain elements of your documents, such as numbered lists. When it does so, Word displays the AutoCorrect Options button next to the item that has been formatted. To undo the automatic formatting, click the AutoCorrect Options button s down arrow, and click the Undo command. To temporarily turn off that type of automatic formatting, click the Stop command on the AutoCorrect Options button s list. If you want to turn off this feature more permanently, click the Auto- Correct Options button s down arrow, and click Control AutoCorrect Options. (You can also click AutoCorrect Options on the Tools menu, and then click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.) In the Apply as you type area, deselect the check boxes for the options you want to turn off. In the Replace as you type area, you can specify whether Word should turn straight quotes (" ") to smart quotes ( ), use superscript with ordinals (1 ^st ), use fraction characters ( ½), change placeholder symbol characters and formatting, and create hyperlinks for Internet and network paths. In the Automatically as you type area, you can control the treatment of lists, indented paragraphs, and styles.