As stated in the introduction to this section, there are two levels
of formatting in the word processing environment: paragraph and
character. Character formatting applies properties to the characters
in a paragraph. It is concerned with the appearance, size, and color
of the actual characters in a word or paragraph.
This topic explains how to set character formatting properties.
All of the character formatting options are accessible from tools
on the PartBar, those tools are noted in this section where appropriate.
To Format Characters
- Select the text you wish to format.
- Only selected text will be formatted.
Use... |
To... |
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Text Font Tool: This tool sets the text font. Click
the tool and choose the font you wish to use from the drop-down
list. The image to the left displays the default font for new
text. |
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Text Size Tool: This tool sets the size of the selected
text. Click the tool and select the size you want. Select Other...
to enter a size not displayed on the drop-down list. Enter the
text size, in points, that you want. The default text size is
displayed on the image to the left. |
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Text Face Tool: This tool sets the format for the
selected text (bold, italic, underline,
etc). |

Text Color tool

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Text Color Tool: This tool sets the color of the
selected text. Click the tool to display a menu bar. The menu
bar contains the following color choices:
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Color: Position the cursor over
the tab, then select the color you want from the palette.
The palette displays the currently active color set. The
colors on the palette can be customized. |
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Pattern: Position the cursor over the tab, then select
the pattern or texture you want from the palette. The
palette displays the current set of patterns or textures.
To display other sets (including the texture set). The
patterns or textures on the palette can be customized. |
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Gradient: Position the cursor over the tab, then select
the gradient you want from the palette. The palette displays
the current set of gradients. The gradients on this palette
can be customized. |
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Transparency: Position the cursor over the
tab, then select the opacity or transparency of the text.
100% represents full opacity, 0% denotes total transparency.
A transparent fill makes whatever items are behind the
item show through. An opaque fill is whatever color, gradient,
or pattern you chose. |
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- All of these tools can be torn-off. The font, text size, and
text type tools tear-off to create the text palette (image below).
See the Tear-off Tools topic for more information about how to
tear-off a tool.
The text color tool tears-off to display a floating text-color
palette (image below). Tearing-off the tool is very useful if
you are making a lot of changes to the text.
The tear-off palette stays open on the workspace as you work.
Show / Hide Invisibles
Invisible characters are Spaces, Tabs, Breaks,
etc. that are normally not shown in a document. If you want to see
these invisible characters in your document, select Show Invisibles
from the Format menu.
If the invisible characters are presently shown in your document,
and you wish to hide them, select Hide Invisibles from
the Format menu.
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