Formatting a Document

Students will learn to format text within a document. This includes changing font characteristics, line spacing, and centering text.

Keystrokes:

Ctrl-b will boldface highlighted text

Ctrl-u will underline highlighted text

Ctrl-i will italicize highlighted text

Ctrl-[ (left bracket) will decrease the font of highlighted text

Ctrl-] (right bracket) will increase the font of highlighted text

Ctrl-e will center text

Ctrl-l will left justify text

Ctrl-r will right justify text

Have the student open a previously save document.

Changing the Text Font Size

1.      Make sure you are at the top of the document (Ctrl-Home)

2.      Ctrl- down arrow will highlight the top line of text

3.      Ctrl-[ (left bracket) will reduce the highlighted font size

4.      Ctrl-] (right bracket) will increase the highlighted font size

5.      Left arrow to un-highlight your text and move to the beginning of your text.

** Note: if you forget to un-highlight your text, you will loose it when you type the next letter. You can recover the lost text by using the undo command (Ctrl-z).

** Note: You can change the font size by going through the Format Menu (Alt, o, f, TAB, TAB). Type a number in the edit box or use you down arrow to select a number in the drop down list.

Changing the Text Font

1.      Make sure you are at the top of the document (Ctrl-Home)

2.      Shift- down arrow will highlight the top line of text

3.      Alt-key moves the focus to the Menu Bar

4.      Right arrow to the Format Menu Enter (or type the letter O to jump to and open the FormatEdit Menu)

5.      Enter (or f-key) to open the Font dialogue box

6.      The default font type is highlighted (Times New Roman or Arial)

7.      Use the down arrow to go through the list of fonts.

8.      If you know the font type you want, you can type its first letter (L - Lucida) to jump to the first font starting with that letter and then down arrow to review the list from there

9.      Enter will change to the font type selected

10. Right arrow to un-highlight text and move to the end of the highlighted text.

Changing Font Style

1.      Highlight any word or line in your document

2.      Use the Ctrl-b shortcut to change the font style to bold face

3.      Use the Ctrl-u shortcut to change the font style to underline text

4.      Use the Ctrl-I shortcut to change the font style to italicize text

5.      Use the left arrow to un-highlight text and move to the beginning of the highlighted text

6.      You should now see bold, underlined and italicized text

** Note, you can remove the bold, italicize, and underline by using the same command (i.e. Ctrl-b will change a bold font back to a regular font).

** Note:, Bold, underline and italicize text can be changed through the Format Menu; however the shortcut keys are more efficient and easier to remember.

Centering Text

1.      Move to any line of text in your document (You do not need to highlight the text to center it)

2.      Ctrl-e will center the text

3.      Ctrl-r will right justify the text

4.      Ctrl-l will left justify the text

Double Spacing Your Document

1.      Highlight your entire document (Ctrl-a)

2.      Ctrl-2 will double space the highlighted text

3.      Ctrl-1 will return the highlighted text to single space

4.      Left arrow to un-highlight the text

** Note, centering text and double spacing text can be done through the Format Menu – Paragraph option, (Alt, o, p then TAB-key to the option in the dialogue box.

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