BOLD, ITALICS, UNDERLINE - MS Word 2010 Tutorial

Text formatting is used to make some parts of text stand out so that they attract attention of the viewer. Microsoft Word allows you to make the text bold, italicize it or underline it for emphasizing the text.

In this lesson, you will learn how to make text in a MS Word document bold, italicized and underlined.

Task

For this tutorial, start a new document and type the following text into it:

Examination Schedule
Date: Wednesday, 8th January 2013
Venue: Patna Science College
0900-1200 hrs: Pre University (Hall-11)
1400-1700 hrs: B.Sc. (Hall-12)

Save the document as “Exam Schedule”.

Your task is to apply bold text formatting to the entire first line, “Date” in second line, “Venue” in third line and the timings in fourth and fifth lines; italicize “Patna Science College” and underline “Hall-11” and “Hall-12” in fourth & fifth lines.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Create a new document, type the text mentioned in the task assignment above and save it with the name “Exam Schedule”.

Method-1: Text Formatting Using Ribbon

1. Select the first line.
2. Click ‘Home’ tab on the Ribbon (see Figure 1).
3. Click ‘B’ in the ‘Font’ group. The selected text will become bold.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for “Date”, “Venue”, “0900-1200 hrs” and “1400-1700 hrs”. All selected text will become bold.
5. Select “Patna Science College”
6. Click ‘I’ on the Ribbon. Selected text will be italicised.
7. Select “Hall-11”.
8. Click ‘U’ on the Ribbon. Selected text will be underlined.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 for “Hall-12”.

Figure 1: Home Tab, Text Formatting Buttons & Font Dialog launcher

TIP!
 
In MS Word, you can select multiple parts of text and apply the desired format at one go following the steps below:

1. Click in the margin by the side of the first line to select it.
2. Press the Ctrl button and, while keeping it pressed, select “Date”, “Venue”, “0900-1200 hrs” and “1400-1700 hrs”. You will find that all selected text is simulteneously highlighted.
3. Now Click ‘B’ on the Ribbon. All highlighted text becomes bold.
4. You can similarly underline “Hall-11” and “Hall-12” simultaneously.

Method-2: Text Formatting Using Font Dialog Box

Figure 2: Font Dialog Box

1. Select the first line, “Date”, “Venue”, “0900-1200 hrs” and “1400-1700 hrs” as explained above.
2. Click the ‘Font Dialog Launcher’ (it is the down pointing arrow in the bottom right corner of the Font group on ‘Home’ tab – see Figure 1). This will bring up the Font Dialog (see Figure 2).
3. Click the 'Font' tab, if it is not already selected.
4. In the ‘Latin Text’ section, click ‘Bold’ in the ‘Font Style’ list. MS Word shows the result of this action in the preview window of the dialog box.
5. Click ‘OK’ button. The selected text will become bold.  
6. Select “Patna Science College” and launch the ‘Font’ dialog box.
7. In the ‘Latin Text’ section, click ‘Italic’ in the ‘Font Style’ list to italicize selected text and click the ‘OK’ button.
8. Select “Hall-11” and “Hall-12” and launch the ‘Font’ dialog box.
9. In ‘All Text’ section, click the inverted triangle in the ‘Underline Style’ box. A drop down list will open showing several underlining styles.
10. Select single underline style. The selected text will be underlined.

Method-3: Text Formatting Using Keyboard Shortcuts

MS Word provides keyboard shortcuts for text formatting – Ctrl+B for making selected text bold, Ctrl+I for italicizing and Ctrl+U for underlining.

1.  Select the first line, “Date”, “Venue”, “0900-1200 hrs” and “1400-1700 hrs”.
2. Press Ctrl+B, i.e. press the Ctrl key and the letter key B together. Selected text will become bold.
3. For underlining, select the text and press Ctrl-U. The selected text will be underlined 
4. For italicizing, select the text and press Ctrl-I. The selected text will become italicized.

Figure 3: Context Menu & Mini Toolbar

Method-4: Text Formatting Using Mini Toolbar

1. Select the first line, “Date”, “Venue”, “0900-1200 hrs” and “1400-1700 hrs”.
2. Right click anywhere in highlighted text. The Context Menu of MS Word will appear with a separate Mini Toolbar above it (see Figure 3).
3. Click ‘B’ in the Mini Toolbar. Selected text will become bold.
4. For underlining, select the text, right click on highlighted text and click ‘U’ in the Mini Toolbar. The selected text will be underlined.
5. For italicizing, select the text, right click on highlighted text and click ‘I’ in the Mini Toolbar. The selected text will be italicised.

TIP!
 
If you wish to emphasize the first line still more by making it bold, underlined and italicized at the same time, select the first line press Ctrl+B, Ctrl+U and Ctrl+I successively and the text of first line will appear bold, underlined and italicized.

After formatting text as explained above, the text in the document will look like this:

Examination Schedule
Date: Wednesday, 8th January 2013
Venue: Patna Science College
0900-1200 hrs: Pre University (Hall-11)
1400-1700 hrs: B.SC.-I (Hall-12)

Clearing Text Formatting

You will be using this document for other exercises where the bold, italic and underline formatting is not required in the first line.

1. To clear formatting, select this line and click ‘Home’ tab.
2. Click the ‘Clear Formatting’ button in the ‘Font’ group. All formatting will be cleared in the first line.

TIP!

Bold, italics and underline formatting commands are toggle commands. First application of these commands formats the text and second application removes the formatting done by the first application. Hence, if you select bold text and press Ctrl+B, the bold formatting will be removed.

After you have completed the above task, select the first line and make it bold once again. The text in ‘Exam Schedule’ document will look like this:

Examination Schedule
Date: Wednesday, 8th January 2013
Venue: Patna Science College
0900-1200 hrs: Pre University (Hall-11)
1400-1700 hrs: B.SC.-I (Hall-12)

Save the document before exiting MS Word.

Recap

Bold, italics and underline formatting can be applied to text in a MS Word document using

• the formatting buttons ‘B’, ‘I’ and ‘U’ on Home tab,
• the ‘Font’ dialog ,
• keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I and Ctrl+U, and
• the mini toolbar

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