Chapter 3. Formatting in Word

Formatting is a way to inject your style into the documents you create. Whether it’s a newsletter for your college football fan club, or a white paper for your Fortune 500 business, formatting lets you transform that boring 12-point Times into something bold (pun intended) and exciting.

Word has independent formatting controls for each of four entities: characters (individual letters and words), paragraphs (anything you’ve typed that’s followed by a press of the Return key), sections (similar to chapters, as described on “Inserting and Removing Section Breaks), and the entire document. Attributes like bold and italic are character formatting; line spacing and centering are paragraph attributes; page numbering is done on a section-by-section basis; and margin settings are considered document settings. Understanding these distinctions will help you know where to look to achieve a certain desired effect.

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