While there are more than 700 font options in Word, Microsoft has commissioned five new custom fonts for Office, in a move away from the Calibri font that has been the default in Microsoft Office for nearly 15 years.
Contents
- 1 What fonts are available in Microsoft Word?
- 2 How many fonts are there?
- 3 How many fonts can Windows 10 install?
- 4 What is the font in Windows 10?
- 5 How many fonts is too many?
- 6 What are the 5 main types of fonts?
- 7 What are the 5 font families?
- 8 Do fonts take up RAM?
- 9 Is Arial a font?
- 10 Where are Microsoft Word fonts stored?
- 11 What font does Apple use?
- 12 Will there be a Windows 11?
- 13 What font does Windows 11 use?
- 14 Is it okay to use 3 fonts?
- 15 Do fonts slow down computer?
- 16 How many font families are there?
- 17 What are 3 common font styles?
- 18 What are fonts called?
- 19 What are 6 common font styles?
- 20 What are the four types of fonts?
What fonts are available in Microsoft Word?
List of typefaces included with Microsoft Windows
Typeface | Weights/Styles | Included with |
---|---|---|
Century Gothic | Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic | 98 |
Comic Sans MS | Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic | 95 (sR1), 8 (Italic) |
Consolas | Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic | Vista |
Constantia | Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold Italic | Vista |
What Font Is, a free font finder uses a catalogue of 550,000+ fonts which leads me to believe there are at least half a million fonts in existance. A quick search in MyFonts, the largest distributor of commercial fonts, shows them housing over 130,000 fonts which fall into: Font familes: 36,000+
How many fonts can Windows 10 install?
add-fonts-windows-10.
Even a plain-vanilla Windows 10 installation includes more than 100 fonts that can be used to change the display of text on the screen and in documents. Third-party programs, including Microsoft Office and some members of the Adobe family, can add hundreds more.
What is the font in Windows 10?
Segoe UI
Windows 10’s default system font, Segoe UI, looks pretty nice. However, if you have something better to replace it with, you can change the default system font on your Windows 10 PC. We’ll show you how to do this.
How many fonts is too many?
How Many Fonts Are Too Many? When you can no longer install more fonts you definitely have too many. As a general rule of thumb, you can expect to run into installation problems with 800-1000 or more installed fonts. In practice, you’ll probably encounter system slowdowns with fewer fonts.
What are the 5 main types of fonts?
There are five basic classifications of typefaces: serif, sans serif, script, monospaced, and display. As a general rule, serif and sans serif typefaces are used for either body copy or headlines (including titles, logos, etc.), while script and display typefaces are only used for headlines.
What are the 5 font families?
Font families
You list the font that you want first, then any fonts that might fill in for the first if it is unavailable, and you should end the list with a generic font, of which there are five: serif, sans-serif, monospace, cursive and fantasy.
Do fonts take up RAM?
Fonts won’t just slow down your PC in general, though. Having too many fonts might slow the boot process down a bit as those fonts are loaded into memory, sure. But you’ll notice too many fonts in other situations. For example, applications like word processors might take an unusually long time to start up.
Is Arial a font?
Arial is an extremely versatile family of typefaces which can be used with equal success for text setting in reports, presentations, magazines etc, and for display use in newspapers, advertising and promotions.
Where are Microsoft Word fonts stored?
C:WindowsFonts folder
All fonts are stored in the C:WindowsFonts folder. You can also add fonts by simply dragging font files from the extracted files folder into this folder. Windows will automatically install them. If you want to see what a font looks like, open the Fonts folder, right-click the font file, and then click Preview.
What font does Apple use?
San Francisco
San Francisco (SF) is the system font on all Apple platforms; the SF Pro variant is the system font in macOS. Using the system font gives your text legibility, clarity, and consistency with apps across Apple platforms. Download the San Francisco family of fonts here.
Will there be a Windows 11?
Starting today, October 5th, Microsoft is rolling out the new Windows 11 to eligible devices. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced the new flagship update to its operating system: Windows 11.
What font does Windows 11 use?
On Windows 11, an operating system announced by Microsoft a few months ago, the default system font is Segoe UI Variable. It is a new version of the classic Segoe and uses variable font technology.
Is it okay to use 3 fonts?
Using more than 3 different fonts makes a website look unstructured and unprofessional. Keep in mind that too many type sizes and styles at once can also wreck any layout.If you do use more than one font, ensure the font families complement each other based on their character width.
Do fonts slow down computer?
In essence, no it shouldn’t slow down the system. you should copy your font files and paste them in the Fonts folder located within Control Panel.
How many font families are there?
Font Families: Serif, Sans-serif, and others
In CSS (and in typography in general) there are five basic types, or families, of fonts: serif, sans serif, cursive, fantasy, and monospace.
What are 3 common font styles?
They appear in order of popularity.
- Helvetica. Helvetica remains the world’s most popular font.
- Calibri. The runner up on our list is also a sans serif font.
- Futura. Our next example is another classic sans serif font.
- Garamond. Garamond is the first serif font on our list.
- Times New Roman.
- Arial.
- Cambria.
- Verdana.
What are fonts called?
A typeface is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly.
What are 6 common font styles?
The 6 Types of Fonts
- Serif Fonts. Serif fonts have their origins in the Latin alphabet.
- Slab Serif Fonts. These are the bolder and chunkier versions of the serif fonts.
- Sans serif fonts.
- Script Fonts.
- Decorative Fonts.
- Handwritten Fonts.
What are the four types of fonts?
What are four main types of fonts?
- Serif fonts.
- Sans serif fonts.
- Script fonts.
- Display fonts.
Calibri has been the default font for all things Microsoft since 2007, when it stepped in to replace Times New Roman across Microsoft Office.
Subsequently, What is Microsoft logo font?
Segoe (/ˈsiːɡoʊ/ SEE-goh) is a typeface, or family of fonts, that is best known for its use by Microsoft. The company uses Segoe in its online and printed marketing materials, including recent logos for a number of products.
Accordingly Why is Microsoft replacing Calibri?
This week Microsoft revealed five fonts it commissioned to pick a successor to Calibri as the default font. The decision to move to a new standard is probably more about wanting to keep up with contemporary style than boosting legibility on screen, de Groot said.
Beside above, What is the best font? The 10 best fonts
- Akzidenz-Grotesk. Probably the best typeface ever designed. …
- New Baskerville. Probably the best serif typeface ever designed. …
- DIN 1451. …
- Franklin Gothic. …
- HTF Didot. …
- Gotham. …
- Knockout. …
- Gill Shadow.
Can I use Microsoft fonts commercially?
If you subscribe to the commercial licensed version of Office 365, you can use it for business use. Regarding your inquiry, yes, you can use Microsoft fonts on t-shirts or board game. However, you are not allowed to copy, redistribute or reverse engineer the font files.
also Which is the easiest font to read? What Is the Easiest Font to Read? (10 Top Options)
- Arial. Arial is the standard font for many word processors, such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs. …
- Helvetica. Another old-school sans-serif typeface you may want to consider is Helvetica. …
- Georgia. …
- Merriweather. …
- Montserrat. …
- Futura. …
- Open Sans. …
- Lato.
What font does Apple use?
Apple modified the majority of its website’s text to use the San Francisco font on January 24, 2017, and San Francisco became the universal official font for Apple.
Can I use the Microsoft logo on my website?
Microsoft logos may only be used in compliance with Microsoft trademark and brand guidelines. No other use is permitted.
Which is better Arial or Calibri?
Which is better Arial or Calibri? Both Arial and Calibri are good one, beautiful, elegant and simple. Arial is little more artistic than Calibri. So if your job requires creativity, its advisable to use Arial over Calibri.
What will replace Calibri?
Five potential replacements for Calibri are Tenorite, Bierstadt, Skeena, Seaford, and Grandview. Tenorite has been designed by Erin McLaughlin and Wei Huang. According to Microsoft, Tenorite has an overall look of a sans serif but with a warmer and more friendly style.
Is Microsoft changing the default font?
Say Hello to Microsoft’s New Default Font. Microsoft has finally decided to change its default font—and it’s doing so in a most democratic fashion. Not only are they replacing Calibri, they are offering five new possible default fonts. People can try them out and vote for their favorite on social.
What are the most hated fonts?
My top 10 most loathed fonts as a graphic designer!
- Hobo.
- Scriptina. …
- Times New Roman. …
- Arial. …
- Bradley Hand. …
- Copperplate Gothic. If I see another law firm/accounting agency/corporate business use this font in their branding, it’ll be too soon! …
- Trajan. “In a world…” …
- Courier. This is just one of the ugliest fonts every created! …
What is the most annoying font?
Comic Sans: The most annoying font in the world Back to video. Even if you didn’t know what it was called, you will be familiar with Comic Sans. Comic Sans is type that has gone wrong.
Why is Arial bad?
Arial and Helvetica are the default font stack for most browsers and for most of the websites. That’s bad, really really bad. Arial and Helvetica suck on web and for paragraphs of text – they are unreadable (as compared to many other typefaces created specifically for web).
Can I use Helvetica Neue commercially?
This font is commercial property and is not allowed to use without proper licensing for usage.
Can I use a free font for commercial use?
Fonts can be free or licensed, for a fee, for commercial use. Whether you pay for a font or acquire it for free, each font comes with a license that explains how you may use that font (and how you may not use the font). … For example, some agreements will restrict the number of computers on which you can install a font.
Is Microsoft Word font copyrighted?
Fonts that come bundled with software (e.g., operating system and Microsoft Office) are usually licensed for use with that software. So if you print out a book using Microsoft Word (although why would you?), you’re probably safe.
What is the most attractive font?
- 10 of the Most Beautiful Fonts for Web Designers. Design Tips. …
- Playfair. Some looks never go out of fashion. …
- Roboto. Roboto is a sans serif font – it’s geometric with friendly and open curves. …
- Raleway. Raleway is an elegant font with a thin weight – the unique ‘W’ really makes it stand out. …
- Pacifico. …
- Quicksand. …
- Oswald. …
- Lato.
What are the 4 major font types?
What are four main types of fonts?
- Serif fonts.
- Sans serif fonts.
- Script fonts.
- Display fonts.
Which font is most pleasing to the eye?
Designed for Microsoft, Georgia was actually created with low-resolution screens in mind, so it’s ideal for your desktop and mobile site visitors alike.
- Helvetica.
- PT Sans & PT Serif.
- Open Sans.
- Quicksand.
- Verdana.
- Rooney.
- Karla.
- Roboto.
What was Steve Jobs favorite font?
Apple has used Helvetica Neue before at greater widths, including in iOS 6 — and it was one of Steve Jobs’ favorite fonts.
What is the most aesthetic font?
Without a question, the most popular font used in aesthetic posts is Helvetica – but there are a few other champion aesthetic fonts you see everywhere depending on the vibe.
Is Microsoft TM or R?
“Microsoft (R) Windows (R)” is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. “Microsoft (R) Excel” is a Microsoft Corporation product name in the United States. … IsatPhone Pro (TM) is a trademark or registered trademark of Inmarsat Global Limited.
Is the Xbox logo copyrighted?
The Xbox Logos are trademarks of Microsoft® Corporation and are used to identify certain Microsoft products and services. As a trademark owner, Microsoft has a responsibility to protect its trademarks from unauthorized or potentially confusing use and to oversee the use of those trademarks by others.
Are icons on Microsoft Word copyrighted?
Easily insert icons and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files into your Microsoft Office documents, workbooks, email messages, and presentations. … These icons are free to use; there’s no royalty or copyright.
In MS Word, an entire family of fonts is usually referred to as a Typeface (like Times New Roman). People also prefer using font style or font type.
And “Font” as a word, is reserved for a combination of different features such as font style, size, color and weight (like Arial, 12 pt, Red, Bold).
Therefore, the word “Font” in MS Word often means a whole family of display features such as the typeface, color, weight, and/or size.
If this distinction makes sense to you, let’s now see how we can explore the list of font styles in MS Word as well as how to add new font types or typeface.
Below is an illustration of the various fonts and how they look when applied.
Below is the list of All fonts in MS Word. The above pictures are illustrations of how these fonts look like.
Abadi MT Condensed Light | Impact |
Albertus Extra Bold | Incised901 Bd BT |
Albertus Medium | Incised901 BT |
Allegro | Incised901 Lt BT |
Amazone BT | Informal011 BT |
AmerType Md BT | Jester |
Antique Olive | Kabel Bk BT |
Arial | Kabel Ult BT |
Arial Black | Kaufmann Bd BT |
Arial MT | Kaufmann BT |
Arial Narrow | Korinna BT |
Arrus BT | Letter Gothic |
Aurora Cn BT | Lithograph |
AvantGarde Bk BT | Lithograph Light |
AvantGarde Md BT | Long Island |
BankGothic Md BT | Lucida Console |
Bazooka | Lucida Handwriting |
Benguiat Bk BT | Lucida Sans |
BernhardFashion BT | Lucida Sans Unicode |
BernhardMod BT | Lydian BT |
BinnerD | Marigold |
Book Antiqua | Market |
Bookman Old Style | Matisse ITC |
Boulder | Monotype Corsiva |
Bremen Bd BT | MS LineDraw |
Calisto MT | News GothicMT |
Calligrapher | NewsGoth BT |
CaslonOpnface BT | OCR A Extended |
Century Gothic | Old Century |
Century Schoolbook | Onyx BT |
Cezanne | OzHandicraft BT |
CG Omega | Pegasus |
CG Times | Pickwick |
Charlesworth | Poster |
Charter Bd BT | PosterBodoni BT |
Charter BT | PTBarnum BT |
Chaucer | Pythagoras |
ChelthmITC Bk BT | Ribbon131 Bd BT |
Clarendon Condensed | Sceptre |
CloisterBlack BT | Serifa BT |
Comic Sans MS | Serifa Th BT |
Copperplate Gothic Bold | ShelleyVolante BT |
Copperplate Gothic Light | Sherwood |
CopperplGoth Bd BT | Signboard |
Cornerstone | Socket |
Coronet | Souvenir Lt BT |
Courier | Staccato222 BT |
Courier New | Steamer |
Cuckoo | Storybook |
Dauphin | Subway |
Denmark | Swis721 BlkEx BT |
English 111 Vivace BT | Swiss911 XCm BT |
EngraversGothic BT | Tahoma |
Exotc350 Bd BT | Technical |
Fransiscan | Teletype |
Freefrm721 Blk BT | Tempus Sans ITC |
FrnkGothITC Bk BT | Times |
Futura Bk BT | Times New Roman |
Futura Lt BT | Times New Roman PS |
Futura Md BT | Trebuchet MS |
Futura ZBlk BT | Tristan |
FuturaBlack BT | Tubular |
Galliard BT | TypoUpright BT |
Garamond | Unicorn |
Geneva | Univers |
Geometr231 BT | Univers Condensed |
Geometr231 Hv BT | Vagabond |
Geometr231 Lt BT | Verdana |
GeoSlab 703 Lt BT | Westminster |
GeoSlab 703 XBd BT | ZapfEllipt BT |
GoudyHandtooled BT | ZapfHumnst BT |
GoudyOLSt BT | ZapfHumnst Dm BT |
Haettenschweiler | Zurich BlkEx BT |
Heather | Zurich Ex BT |
Helvetica | |
Herald | |
Humanst 521 Cn BT | |
Humanst521 BT | |
Humanst521 Lt BT |
How to add new fonts to Word
Despite the fact that Microsoft Word and the other office apps have plenty of font styles, you may need to add new fancy fonts into your Word document.
You have no problem because, in this tutorial, I will show how to add any new font into MS Word and use it in your projects.
However, there are several ways you can add new fonts in MS Word.
I’ll go through each option one after the other here in this article.
Option 1: Using the Microsoft Store
Using the Microsoft Store, you can add new fonts into your
Word document or other office apps.
The steps are outlined below:
- Go to Settings on your PC
To open settings on your PC, type settings in the search bar
and press the Enter key.
- Click on Fonts > Get more fonts in
Microsoft Store
Upon clicking on Get more fonts, the Microsoft Store will open with a list of available fonts in the store.
- If you find the font you want to add, click on
it.
- Then click on the Get button to download the font.
Of course, some of the fonts aren’t free. Some of them require you to make a little contribution before you can download.
After completing the above steps, the downloaded font family
will be available in Word and the other office apps like Excel or PowerPoint.
Option 2: Using the Font Installer
Microsoft Store doesn’t have lots of fonts. Therefore, you may not get the font you are looking for from there.
However, you can download whatever new font you want from other sources and install it into MS Word or other office apps.
Obey the steps below:
- Download the font you wish to add to MS Word.
Download Fonts Here: AbstractFonts.Com
There are several places you can download awesome fonts from. The above link also has a lot of amazing free fonts for you to explore. Click here for more resources on free fonts.
- After downloading the new font you want to add, browse to the folder that has the font file.
Note: The font may be in a zip file. If that’s the case, you
should unzip the file first.
- Right-Click on the font file. A shortcut menu will
appear, select Install or Install for all users.
After applying all the steps above, the installed font will
now be available in your list of fonts in MS Word and the other office apps.
These are the various ways you may add new fonts into MS Word.
Office 2021 Office 2021 for Mac Office 2019 Office 2019 for Mac Office 2016 Office 2016 for Mac Office 2013 Office 2010 Word 2007 PowerPoint 2007 More…Less
Most applications (such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) include fonts that are automatically installed when you install the software. For example, applications that are created especially for document design projects, such as Microsoft Publisher, often come with quite a few extra fonts that you can use with any other program on your computer.
However, sometimes you may want to install custom fonts that you’ve created, purchased or downloaded from somewhere else. In this article we’ll talk about how to install those fonts so you can use them in Microsoft Office.
Locate custom fonts on the Web
In addition to acquiring and using fonts installed with other applications, you can download fonts from the Internet. Some fonts on the Internet are sold commercially, some are distributed as shareware, and some are free. The Microsoft Typography site site provides links to other font foundries (the companies or individuals outside of Microsoft who create and distribute fonts) where you can find additional fonts.
After you find a font that you would like to use with an Office application, you can download it and install it through the operating system that you are currently using on your computer. Because fonts work with the operating system, they are not downloaded to Office directly. You should go through the system’s Fonts folder in Windows Control Panel and the font will work with Office automatically. On the Mac you use the Font Book to add the font and then copy it to the Windows Office Compatible folder.
Many third parties outside of Microsoft package their fonts in .zip files to reduce file size and to make downloading faster. If you have downloaded a font that is saved in .zip format double-click the zip file to open it.
Install a custom font you have downloaded
Once you’ve downloaded the font you want to install you need to install it in the operating system. Once the font is properly installed in the operating system Microsoft Office will be able to see and use it. For detailed instructions select the operating system you’re using from the drop-down box below.
-
Find the font file that you downloaded, keeping in mind that it may be contained within a .zip file. It’s probably located in your downloads folder.
-
Double-click the font file to open it in the Font Previewer
-
If you’re satisfied that this is the font you want, click Install at the top left.
-
Close the Font Previewer, and open your Office program. You should now see your new font included on the font list.
-
Find the font file you downloaded — it likely has a .ttf or .otf extension and it’s probably in your downloads folder. Double-click on it.
Note: If the font file has a .zip extension you need to open that .zip file and open the font file from there.
-
It will open in the font previewer. Click Install Font. It will open in the Font Book.
-
Close the Font Book. Your font should now be available to Microsoft Office.
Note: If you’re using Office 2011 for Mac, you may need to drag and drop the font to the Windows Office Compatible collection in the Font Book to make it available to Microsoft Office.
Sharing files that contain non-standard fonts
When you install a custom font, each font will work only with the computer you’ve installed it on. Custom fonts that you’ve installed on your computer might not display the same way on a different computer. Text that is formatted in a font that is not installed on a computer will display in Times New Roman or the default font.
Therefore, if you plan to share Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, or Excel files with other people, you’ll want to know which fonts are native to the version of Office that the recipient is using. If it isn’t native, you may have to embed or distribute the font along with the Word file, PowerPoint presentation, or Excel spreadsheet. For more information about this see Fonts that are installed with Microsoft Office.
See also
-
Microsoft Typography
-
Change or set the default Font in Microsoft Office
-
Language Accessory Pack for Office
Do you have ideas for how we can improve Microsoft Office?
See How do I give feedback on Microsoft Office?
Need more help?
Microsoft Word is the global standard for word processing. At the same time, it’s one of the most maddening applications to master, which is why this Geek School series is all about learning how to format documents in Word.
Word 2013 and a Little Perspective
Microsoft is far more than a typical staid word processor. Word is one of the most affordable and closest things you can get to your very own printing press. In fact, it is for all With Word, you can write textbooks, create full magazine and newspaper layouts with graphics, write a novel with indices, and much, much more. You can do in mere hours, what twenty years ago might have taken an entire editorial team days or even weeks.
Microsoft Word completely eliminates the aggravation of typos (in theory at least). There is no need to retype whole chapters in order to add or rearrange content. Instead you can add, move, or even remove complete sentence, paragraphs, and chapters in mere seconds!
Of course, we take this power for granted but we can tell you, it really beats using a typewriter (let alone movable type) – making a mistake using a typewriter meant stopping what you were doing, rolling the platen up to better expose your typo, and then either using an eraser to remove the offending characters, or carefully dabbing on White-Out and patiently blowing it dry. Then, of course, you’d have to roll the platen back to the line you were typing on, taking further care to make sure it all lined up perfectly.
If you can imagine how many daily typing errors you make then you can probably get an idea of how long it took to produce even simple documents. Needless-to-say, it paid to be accurate, and unless you were a really good typist, typing an essay or book report, could be a long arduous process. And forget about adding pictures into your document. Doing that kind of stuff at home was nearly impossible. Oh sure, you could include your illustrations and photos and then refer to them, but it wasn’t as simple and elegant as cut-copy-paste we’ve become so accustomed to.
Nevertheless, all this power and control does arrive with a fairly steep learning curve. It can be a pain to get the hang of and be fluent in effectively formatting eye-catching documents. Luckily, that’s where we come in – with How-To Geek School’s Formatting Documents with Microsoft Word 2013.
What We Will Cover
This series aims to introduce you to a large swath of Word 2013’s document formatting features through five lessons.
In this lesson, we first cover some Word basics like the Ribbon and page structure like tabs, margins, and indents. Additionally, we show you how to manipulate formatting marks or simply turn them on/off. Our first lesson concludes with an exploration of fonts, and finally templates.
Lesson 2 begins with paragraphs, specifically alignment, indentation, and line spacing. After that we move on to shading and borders, and then lists (bulleted, numbered, and multilevel). We’ll also briefly touch upon AutoCorrect options.
After that, Lesson 3 begins with a lengthy exploration of tables (inserting, drawing, formatting, etc.) and then we dive into other formatting options, including links, headers, footers, equations, and symbols.
Lesson 4’s primary focus will be illustrations and multimedia such as pictures, shapes, WordArt, and more. We move on from there to briefly cover working with more than one language.
Finally, in Lesson 5, we wrap up with styles and themes, covering the gamut, new styles, inspecting styles, managing and modifying, and lastly themes.
Before we do all that however, let’s take some time to orient ourselves with Word’s anatomy and layout.
The Ribbon
As you may be familiar, Microsoft employs a “Ribbon” interface throughout their products. These ribbons are prominent in Office and Windows 8 (File Explorer and WordPad).
Here we see the Ribbon in Word 2013, the application we’ll be using for all our work.
The Ribbon is further subdivided into tabs (Home, Insert, Design, etc.) and each tab is further broken down into sections (Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, etc.).
Each of these sections can be expanded by clicking the small arrow in the lower-right corner.
Here, if we click on the arrow on the “Font” section, it opens to the trusty “Font” dialog:
While some menus may open to dialogs, others may spawn panes that slide out from one side of the screen. Also, if you use a computer with a lower resolution screen and need more screen real estate, you can click the small arrow to the very far lower-right corner of the ribbon.
This will cause the Ribbon to collapse, giving you more vertical space to work with. To get the Ribbon back, simply click on a tab and it will spring back into view (you can pin it if you want it to stay open).
Alternatively, you can quickly hide/unhide the Ribbon by typing “CTRL + F1.”
Home is Where Word’s Heart is
We’ll take some time before diving into actual document formatting, to talk about the “Home” tab. Even if you never touch another part of Word for the rest of your life (fairly impossible but still), the Home tab contains its most essential functions and is vital to formatting your documents consistently well.
See here how the “Home” tab has a total of five sections: “Clipboard,” “Font,” “Paragraph,” “Styles,” and “Editing.”
Clipboard
“Clipboard” functions are pretty rudimentary; you should know them by now: cut, copy, paste. Most likely you use right-click menus to do many of your cut-copy-paste functions, or keyboard shortcuts: “CTRL + X”, “CTRL + C”, “CTRL + V,” respectively.
Opening the “Clipboard” pane however, reveals a goldmine of functionality that can actually prove quiet useful when formatting documents. The Word clipboard collects everything you cut or copy for later use. This is particularly useful if you need to paste several distinct passages of text and/or images throughout your document. You can simply place your pointer at the correct insertion point, open the “Clipboard” viewer and select the piece you want to paste.
Font
The “Font” section and applicable dialog should be pretty familiar to the majority of Word users. Even if you’re not a Word pro, you’ve used the font functions in Word every time you create a document. Each time you bold or italicize something, you’re employing font functions. So knowing your way around the “Font” section and dialog is an excellent approach to mastering Word’s formatting bells and whistles.
We’ll go further into depth on fonts and typefaces in this lesson, for now, take a little time to familiarize yourself with its various functions.
Paragraph
Important also is the “Paragraph” section, which lets you set critical formatting features such as indenting, line spacing, and page breaks. Further, adjusting paragraph controls lets you play with borders, shading, and turn paragraph marks on or off. We’ll talk more about this in Lesson 2.
Styles
Styles are a great way to manage the way your entire document’s headers, titles, and text quickly and easily. Rather than going through a document and adding or changing headers one by one, you can simply apply a style, and then make changes to it using the “Styles” section. We’ll go into styles a great deal more in our final lesson of this series.
The Page
Your page is where all the magic happens, it’s where you compose your masterpieces and as such, knowing your way around is essential. Let’s dive in by turning on the “Ruler” and then explain how to set tabs and margins.
To turn on the ruler, we’ll first click the “View” tab and in the “Show” section, check the box next to “Ruler.” Note the horizontal and vertical rulers that appear along the page edges.
If you want to work according to another measurement system, you can change it from “File” -> “Options” -> “Advanced.”
Tabs
With the ruler on, we can cover how to use tabs and set margins. The ruler is used to show to show the positions of tab stops and margins.
Tabs are used to position text by using the “Tab” key. This works better than spacing everything manually, and with most fonts, tabs are the surest way to make sure everything lines up properly.
Microsoft Word sets tabs by default to ½-inch intervals. When you hit “Tab,” the insertion point will automatically jump right (½-inch per tab).
You set tabs by clicking on the ruler to indicate where you want to place them. You’ll see a vertical dotted line allowing your more precise control over where they go.
You can set tabs in any section of the document, meaning the top of the page can have different tabs than the middle or the bottom. Basically, you can a different tabbing scheme on each and every line of your document if you need or desire.
Types of Tabs
There are several different kinds of tabs you can use. To pick the type, click the tab selector located at the far left-hand side of the screen as shown below.
Here we see a left tab, note all the text is aligned to the left.
And similarly, a right tab:
A center tab:
A decimal tab allow you to create columns of numbers and easily line them up by decimal point:
A vertical bar tab, which doesn’t act like a tab, allows you to demarcate text. It looks the same as if you typed | however the advantage is that you can grab the “bar tab” in the ruler and move them together.
You can exert more control over tabs by double-clicking on any one to bring up the tabs dialog window. Note here you can have more precise control over tab stop positions, alignment, and clearing them.
Margins
You can see your margins by making sure Word is viewed in “Print Layout.”
Here in this example, we see our left margin is set at two inches and our left is set at four inches, giving us two inches of horizontal printable area. The margin indicators are the bottom arrows, while top arrow is a hanging indent, which we’ll cover in the very next section.
On a normal document, the left and right margins default to one-inch and 6 ½ inches. This means on a regular 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, you will have one-inch margins where print will not appear, giving you 6.5 inches of horizontal printable area.
To move margins and the hanging indent, hover over each one with the mouse pointer until it changes to arrows and then drag them to the size you desire.
If you simply grab the left margin, it will leave the hanging indent behind.
And on that note, let’s briefly discuss indents in a bit more detail.
Indents
Indents are used to position the paragraph with margins or within the columns in a table.
You can tweak your margins further depending on what you’re writing. For example, you can create a “first line indent.” This is more of an old school style wherein the first line of each paragraph will be indented.
This is a more traditional way of formatting paragraphs, allowing you to denote where new paragraphs begin in a single-spaced document. Today, text is usually formatted in a block style with a double space between paragraphs.
A second line, or “hanging indent,” will automatically indent every line after the first one. One confusing part with indents is you can move them outside of the margin, which is counterintuitive unless you consider that a printer can print outside the margins, and is limited only by the width of the paper.
There’s not a whole lot to master when it comes to tabs, margins, and indents. That said, it pays to understand how they work so you can get more precise results in your documents. And it gives you a better understanding of why a documents looks the way it does or more importantly, why it may not look the way you want it to look.
Formatting marks
Before we proceed any further, we should point out that you might be noticing now that in some of our screenshots, there are formatting marks that show paragraphs, spaces, tabs, and others. To see the tabs and other text-formatting marks in the document select the ¶ (paragraph) symbol here on the “Paragraph” section on the “Home” tab.
To choose which formatting marks are seen, you can select them in Word “Options.” To open the options dialog, first click on the “File” tab and then choose “Options.” Finally, under “Display” you will see that you can select formatting options that always appear.
For example, if you want to turn off all the formatting marks except paragraphs and spaces, you would select only those two. Then you can turn off all or individual formatting marks in the “Paragraph” section.
Formatting marks are very important for creating clean, consistently formatted documents and they don’t show up in the final, printed document, plus you can turn them on or off as needed, so learn to use them to your advantage.
Fonts vs. Typefaces
Typefaces and fonts will be a routine part of your daily document formatting unless you’re happy with one single font for every document you write. Good font use is very important as it can allow you to better express yourself and get your point across. For that reason, you want to at least understand the very basics of how they work and what font is appropriate where and why.
For the sake of clarification, a “typeface” is basically the way a collection of letters, numbers, and symbols looks across its entirety. Here we see the Times New Roman typeface, which will have the same characteristics no matter which font you use. In other words, Times looks like Time, whether it is bolded, italicized, or whatever formatting you apply to it.
A font may be understood as the entire collection of typefaces. For example, Times New Roman and all its various forms (bold, italic, bold italic) is a “font family.” Each of the variations (regular, bold, italic, and bold italic) within the family is a font:
For the sake of simplicity, rather than split hairs and confuse you with talk of typefaces and fonts, we’ll just refer to everything type-related as a font.
Serif fonts
There are two types of fonts you should understand.
First, there are so-called serif fonts; serifs are those little bits that stick out from a letter as in the example below.
In many cases, a serif font will look best in formal of official documents. One of those most immediately identifiable and iconic examples of a serif font is seen on the New York Times masthead:
Sans serif
Conversely, a sans serif font will obviously not have serifs, hence the “sans” part. Here you see the Arial font, which is one of Windows’ default fonts.
Sans serif fonts are widely used in advertising and logos because they often tend to look new and modern. Without a doubt the most notable sans serif font is Helvetica, upon which Arial is obviously based. You can find dozens of examples of Helvetica-derived fonts in modern culture. Check out Microsoft, Target, and Panasonic for just a few examples.
You can add different fonts to Windows, and by extension Word, by downloading them from the web.
If you want to read up more about typefaces and fonts, Microsoft provides more information its typography homepage.
Point size
Point size relates to the size of the font, leading, and other page items. It is not connected to any established unit of measurement. In typography, a point is the smallest whole unit of measurement.
For most fonts in Word, the smallest point size is 8 points tall. The smallest lines and other graphic objects can have is a point size of 1. Here are some example of various point sizes:
Font Styles and Effects
You can apply various font styles and effects from the “Font” tab on the “Home” ribbon.
You can access further font effects from the full font dialog accessible by clicking the arrow in the bottom right corner.
You have a whole range of effects, including colors and different underline styles you can apply.
Before we end this lesson, we should take a moment to briefly acquaint you with templates, since they can often make short work of complex layouts.
Templates are pre-configured documents, like a resume or business cards that you can use to speed creating forms. There are templates for pretty much anything you can think of.
The goal of Microsoft Word is twofold: (1) provide sets of themes and styles so that the Word user can create professional-looking documents and (2) give the user the ability to create documents of graphic-designer quality by providing tools and pre-configured set of objects from which the user can select.
When you open Microsoft Word or click on the “New” from the “File” tab, the first screen it shows you are the templates available to you, either already included with the program, or available for quick download. If you don’t immediately see what you want, try “suggested searches” or use the search box.
Right-click on any template and you can “Preview” or “Create” the template. You can also pin a preferred template so it is always available at the top of the list.
Creating a template will cause it to open if it is stored locally on your computer, or it will download if it isn’t. Note that some these templates, such as the gift certificate pictured below are offered by third-party sites, so they may not all be free.
If you decide you want to purchase a third-party template, you will be provided with further instructions on how to do so.
After you pick a template, it will open as a new document, and you can fill it in and tweak it to your liking. We see here the template for the “Basic Resume.”
Note how Word will automatically fill in your name and the template provides instructions on how to use it. In reality, this template is really nothing more than a table (discussed in Lesson 3) with a Theme (discussed in Lesson 5) applied to it.
When you are done filling out the template, you can then save it as a new document. You can also take a template, make changes to it, and then save it as a new template. Let’s say for example, that you wanted to apply a different style to our “Basic Resume.” You’d simply need to open the template, affect the changes you want, and then save it as a new template.
There’s a whole lot to discover with templates. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about creating every single document on your own. Need a quick business card or invitations to your retirement party? Word templates make quick work of a lot of formatting headaches, leaving you time to actually design something you’ll be happy with!
Coming up Next…
That concludes our lesson for today, you should now have a fairly firm grasp on Word’s layout, tabs, margins, indents, fonts, and templates.
Tomorrow we’ll go over how to change the appearance and behavior of paragraphs on your pages, shading and borders, as well as introduce you to lists and all their various parts!
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