Font and formatting. Formatting Word paragraphs The concept of a paragraph, its parameters and formatting tools

Formatting text when working with a word processor is a process of transformation appearance text in order to make it more convenient for reading. Text formatting includes setting a number of parameters related to both the entire document and its individual parts - paragraph, line, page, etc. As an example, we will look at setting basic formatting parameters in the most popular Word editor.

What is paragraph formatting?

Paragraph formatting includes setting paragraph indentation (“red line”), spacing before and after paragraphs, spacing between lines in a paragraph, and text alignment in a paragraph. In text Microsoft editor Word, all these parameters can be set in the Format/Paragraph menu section or in the “Paragraph” item in the context menu, called by right-clicking the mouse.

What is font formatting?

Font formatting involves more than just choosing the type and size of the font. In addition to this, you can set font style options (bold, italic, etc.), as well as special effects (strikethrough text, shadow effect, raising or lowering text in relation to standard level). In the main Word menu this is the “Format/Font” section, in the mouse context menu - the “Font” item.

Setting Page Options

What is document formatting? This process is not limited to just setting font and paragraph parameters. An important element of preparing a document is also setting page parameters: page size and orientation (portrait or landscape), margins at the top, bottom, right and left. Page settings are set in the "File/Page Settings" menu section.

I would like to believe that I was able to cover the topic: what is text formatting and you have no more questions left.

Formatting Operations include breaking the text into lines (within a paragraph) and pages, choosing the location of paragraphs, indents and spaces between paragraphs, wrapping around individual paragraphs, as well as types and styles of fonts. These operations are performed by various word processors with varying degrees of automation. The essence of formatting is the ability word processor change the design of the document on the page, namely:

• - change the boundaries of the working field, defining the fields above, below, left, right;
• - set line spacing (sparseness of lines on the page) and letter spacing in a word;
• - align text - center, press to the left or right border;
• - evenly distribute words in a line;
• - use different fonts, etc.

Text formatting. When editing a document, its content changes, and when formatting, its appearance changes. IN text editors differentiate character formatting And formatting paragraphs.

At character formatting, as a rule, font parameters are set: typeface, size, style, underline type, etc.

Typeface is a term that defines general shape symbol. For example, the roman typeface is a common name for a whole family of classic fonts and is distinguished by serifs at the ends of letters and combinations of thick and thin lines in the style of the character. This typeface is easy to read, so font developers have created many similar-looking fonts based on it, such as the Times New Roman font that comes with Windows.

For any fragment of a document (words, lines, paragraphs, sentences or the entire document), you can set font. The concept of a font includes a combination of the following parameters:

• — font type (or typeface). This could be the Times, Courier, etc.;
• - font size. Specified in points. For example: 14 pt, 16 pt, etc.;
• — style (regular, bold, italic, bold italic);
• - type of underlining (single, double, wavy, etc.);
• — font color;
• — effects (superscript and subscript, strikethrough, shadow, etc.);

To specify a different font, first select the fragment in which you are going to change the font. Then use the toolbar to change the font type, size, and style.

If you need to increase (decrease) the font size, then expand the list of sizes and select the desired value or enter it yourself. To change the font type, expand the list of fonts and select the one you need.

You can make the selected text fragment bold, italic or underlined (in any combination) by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. With their help, the corresponding effects are removed.

In the editor Microsoft Word finer font formatting can be done by selecting a piece of text and selecting the Format/Font... command. This command opens a dialog box in which you can make all the available font design options. Using the elements of this window, you can change not only the font type and size, but also all other font parameters. Having done necessary settings, press OK.

In addition to the usual characters depicted on the keyboard keys, most fonts include Special symbols and icons. These symbols are used when creating documents of a scientific or technical nature, as well as when working with languages ​​other than English. Since these types of symbols are not available on the keyboard, Word provides a dialog box for inserting them.

Formatting Paragraphs

Formatting is often applied to a paragraph.

A paragraph is a piece of text whose input process ended by pressing the Enter key. The paragraph is a key element in document structure for many word processors (although there are others, for example, in Microsoft Word - sections).

Paragraph formatting operations include setting paragraph boundaries and paragraph indents, alignment, and enabling word wrap.

Setting paragraph boundaries performed using indent markers located on the coordinate ruler, or the corresponding menu commands.

Alignment(turn off). There are four types of horizontal (left, right, center, justified) and three types of vertical alignment (up, down, height).

Transfer. When automatic hyphenation is turned off, a word that does not fit on the line is completely hyphenated onto next line. This will not add elegance to the text; its right edge remains uneven. To improve the appearance of text, use the hyphenation mode. With the manual hyphenation option, the user himself determines the location of the hyphen by entering a hyphen, and with a hard carriage return (by pressing the Enter key) moves to the next line. Using this hyphenation mode results in the need to remove hyphens when re-formatting the document text.

When the automatic hyphenation mode is turned on, a soft hyphenation option is implemented: the word processor itself divides the word into a slot and hyphenates it in the best possible way. This mode does not create any difficulties when reformatting.

To set the indentation of the red line of a paragraph, you need to select the desired paragraph or several paragraphs, move the mouse pointer to the upper left marker on the scale bar, press the left mouse button and, without releasing it, drag the marker to the desired indent value of the red line of the paragraph along the scale bar. To set the indentation of subsequent lines of a paragraph on the left, you need to select a paragraph or several paragraphs or place the cursor on the desired paragraph and move the mouse pointer to the middle left marker on the scale ruler, press the left mouse button and, without releasing it, move to the desired indent along the ruler. If you need to change the indentation of the first and subsequent lines of a paragraph at the same time, you need to select the paragraph or place the cursor on it and move the mouse pointer to the lower left marker, press the left mouse button and, without releasing it, drag the marker to the desired location along the ruler. To change the indentation of all lines of a paragraph on the right, you need to move the mouse pointer to the lower right marker on the scale bar, press the left mouse button and, without releasing it, drag the marker along the scale bar to the desired indentation value on the right. To change the left indentation of the red and subsequent lines of the paragraph, you can use the Increase indent or Decrease indent on-screen buttons on the Formatting toolbar. The easiest way to change the alignment of text on a page is to use the on-screen buttons on the Formatting toolbar. Document text can be aligned: 1. Left edge; 2. Centered; 3. Right edge; 4. Justified - with this alignment, the spacing between adjacent words is automatically selected so that the text is aligned to the left and right edges at the same time. All actions for formatting paragraphs can be performed using the Paragraph dialog box, which is called up by selecting the Paragraph command from the Format menu item or selecting the Paragraph command from the program context menu. Let's take a closer look at the components of the Paragraph dialog box. Dialog window The paragraph has two tabs: 1. Indents and spacing; 2. Position on the page Basic actions when formatting paragraphs are carried out using the Indents and Spacing tab. Here, by selecting the appropriate command from the Alignment drop-down list, the user can change the alignment of the paragraph text, set the corresponding counters to the numerical values ​​of the right and left indents, the first and subsequent lines of the paragraph. Numerical indentation values ​​are displayed in centimeters. So, for example, to set the indentation of the first line of a paragraph (red line) to 1.5 cm, you must perform the following steps: 1. Select the paragraph or place the cursor in it; 2. Open the Paragraph dialog box; 3. In the First Line drop-down list, select the Indent command 4. In the counter located to the right of this list, enter the numerical value of 1.5 cm. Using the Indents and Spacing tab, the user can also change the spacing between adjacent paragraphs by specifying Before and in the counters. After the numerical value in points. To change the line spacing of a paragraph, you must select the criterion for setting the spacing between lines of text in the Line spacing drop-down list, and then, if necessary, enter the required numeric value in the Value counter. There are several criteria for setting the spacing between lines of text: 1. Single – i.e. line spacing corresponds to a value of 12 pt. 2. One and a half - i.e. line spacing corresponds to a value of 18 pt. 3. Double - i.e. line spacing corresponds to a value of 24 pt. 4. Minimum - line spacing is automatically selected to be no less than a certain value entered into the counter on the right 5. Exactly - line spacing, which is equal to the value entered in the counter on the right 6. Multiplier - line spacing, which is equal to a single spacing multiplied by the number entered in counter on the right. At the bottom of the Paragraph dialog box is a sample window that displays any changes the user makes to the paragraph. By clicking the Tab stop button in this window, the user opens a dialog box of the same name, where he is prompted to set or change tab stops. If all, user installed the characteristics of the paragraph satisfy it, then to apply them you must click the OK button in the Paragraph dialog box, otherwise – Cancel. The Position on Page tab allows the user to specify some other paragraph parameters (disable dangling lines, prohibit line numbering, automatic hyphenation, etc.).

Speaker Deck SlideShare

In the fourth lesson of the course, the capabilities of a word processor in the field of formatting paragraphs, setting tab stops, as well as its types will be examined. In the final part, we will look at working with single-level lists, both bulleted and numbered, as well as the basics of working with multi-level lists.

MOS Skills 77-418

Theory:

1. Formatting Paragraphs

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Paragraph formatting is an integral part of creating professional texts in the MS Word processor. Properly formatted text will allow the reader to focus on the content of the document. MS Word allows you to customize text alignment in a paragraph, indents, and spacing, both line and between paragraphs.

Setting indents

Indentation– this is the empty space between the text and the page borders.

Indentations help paragraphs differ from the main text. In Word, you can adjust the indentation of the first line, the indentation of the rest of the text of the paragraph, both on the right and on the left, and you can also set the so-called “negative indentations” when the paragraph text extends beyond the boundaries of the page. You can configure paragraph parameters using the ruler - one of the Word interface elements, the "Paragraph" groups, the first group is on the "Home" tab, the second on the "Page Layout" tab (despite the same name, they are not identical, the group located on the " Page Layout" only allows you to adjust indents and spacing, but does it more precisely), as well as using the paragraph settings dialog box. The paragraph settings dialog box can be accessed from the Paragraph group or when setting paragraph style settings. Accordingly, all changes made can be saved as a paragraph style.

In the vast majority of cases, paragraph settings are made when setting the style, or then the changes are saved as a style. Of course, you can adjust paragraph settings and then copy them using the Format Painter tool, but this is a clear example of what not to do.

Let's make several different paragraph indent settings using the tools described above.

Setting text alignment

Aligning text in a paragraph involves positioning it between document boundaries. By default, text is left aligned. You can align to the right, center, or stretch across the width. This concerns the horizontal positioning of text.

To quickly position text, you can use the following hotkey combinations: Ctrl + L , Ctrl + E , Ctrl + R , Ctrl + J , left, center, right and stretch to fit the page width accordingly.

There is also vertical alignment, which shows how text will be placed between the bottom and top borders of the document.


By default, text on document pages is top aligned. You can also align to the center of the page, along the bottom edge, or stretch along the height of the page (stretching will occur by increasing the spacing between paragraphs).

Exists two ways to adjust vertical alignment text on page:

• “Page Layout” tab “Page Setup” group, open the “Page Setup” dialog box on the “Paper Source” tab, use the “Vertical Alignment” item;
• “File” tab/menu, “Print” menu item, “Page Setup” command on the “Paper Source” tab, use the “Vertical Alignment” item.

Horizontal text alignment can be adjusted using the tools in the “Paragraph” group of the “Home” tab, using hotkeys, or in the paragraph style settings.

Filling a paragraph with color and setting borders

In MS Word, it is possible to set an arbitrary color as the background of a paragraph (similar to coloring text), as well as set borders for the paragraph. This is done using the interface elements of the “Paragraph” group, or using the “Borders and Fill” dialog box, which is called up through the “Borders” / “Borders and Fill...” command.

If there is a need to set visible paragraph boundaries or set the background color when setting the style, then in the style settings you will need to select the “Format/Border...” command.

Setting line spacing and paragraph spacing

The ability to fill a paragraph with color and set borders for it is not in demand when composing professional texts, in contrast to setting line spacing, as well as spacing between the paragraphs themselves.

Moreover, as a rule, line spacing is required to be specified in the requirements for materials in articles, theses, diplomas and other standardized reports.

You can quickly set the spacing using the “Spacing” drop-down menu of the “Paragraph” group, the “Home” tab, in this case you will have to use one of the preset line spacing settings, you can also add/remove spacing before or after the paragraph by 12 pt. For more precise settings, you will have to use the “Other line spacing options...” command, which launches the standard “Paragraph” dialog box, which we have already talked about more than once. Thus, this is the fourth way to launch this dialog box.


For single and double line spacing, there is a hotkey combination: Ctrl +1, Ctrl +2, respectively.

You can also adjust the spacing using the “Design” tab, “Document Formatting” group. The “Paragraph Spacing” command contains several preset settings for spacing between paragraphs and between lines, and if a suitable option cannot be found, you can use the last menu item “Custom Paragraph Spacing”. The Manage Styles dialog box opens.

Attention! Using the Design tab (in latest versions Word updates 2016, it is renamed “Layout”) the paragraph style settings change, so, firstly, you don’t need to select anything, the paragraph style on which the cursor is positioned will change, and, secondly, since the spacing changes for the style, the changes will affect the entire document , where this style is used.

1. Tabulation

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Tab is a tool for aligning text in a Word document.

It is customizable for a paragraph, and tab stops are easily specified in the paragraph style settings. The topic of tabulation in MS Word belongs to the category of so-called auxiliary topics: using tabulation you can organize filling of text in columns or aligning numbers for a formula, tabulation is used in lists, etc. Accordingly, it is advisable to close the topic of tabulation early, since we will often resort to it in the future.

In order to indent a tab, you must press the Tab key, and in order to see tabs in the text, you must display non-printing characters in the text. By default, tab stops in Word are set to every half inch and left-sided tab stops (we'll talk about types a little later). Here, by the way, is where the default value for the indentation of the first line of a paragraph is 1.25 cm for Russian Word versions and 1.27 cm. for English (if the metric system of measures is used) it corresponds to the first tabulation. IN English version the value in centimeters more correctly corresponds to half an inch; recall that 1 inch is 2.54 cm. The author has often encountered users who use tabs to indent the first line. Never do this.

There are five types of tabs in total:

• left tab stop– used by default and aligns text to the left relative to the tab stop;
• center tab– aligns the text centered relative to the tab stop position;
• right tab– aligns text to the right relative to the tab stop;
• tab by delimiter– aligns the text to the separator. It is used, as a rule, to align numbers relative to the decimal separator in numbers;
• tab with a line– adds vertical line at the place where the tab delimiter is set.

To quickly set the tab stop position, just click the mouse on the ruler, double click by tab will bring up the Tab dialog box and allow you to make more fine tuning tab stops (fine-tune tab stops, change the type, or set a placeholder). Here you can change the “default” value for tab stops.

The Tab dialog box is called through the “Paragraph” dialog box, and we have already covered enough how to call the “Paragraph” window. This is when setting the style both from the “Home” tab and from the “Page Layout” tab, you can even call context menu directly in the text and select “Paragraph”.

After setting tab stops on the ruler, they can be moved by simply moving the mouse, or deleted by simply pulling the tab stop down or up, or through the “Tab” dialog box.

That's all for tabulation. In the future we will return to this topic, and we will begin this practice with the next question.

1. Working with single-level lists

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Often, for clarity, ordering, or other reasons, information must be presented in the form of a specific list, in other words, a list.

In MS Word, lists can be single-level or multi-level, as well as bulleted and numbered. Single-level lists with imitation of several levels can be distinguished as a separate subtype.

Bulleted list

If the information presented in the form of a list does not require ordering, it is usually presented in the form of an unnumbered list. A marker for this type of list can be represented by any symbol or picture; often a dash or a dot is chosen as a marker in professional texts, but there are no strict requirements here.

To insert a single-level bulleted list, use the corresponding command in the “Paragraph” group of the “Home” tab. The drop-down menu itself is divided into three areas: recently used markers, marker library, and markers in the document. The purpose of the first and last zones is clear based on the name, and as for the marker library, markers with which you plan to work in the future are added here. By default, a marker is automatically added to the library and inserted into the list in the document; if you need to add a marker to the library yourself, this is done by right-clicking the mouse.

In the drop-down menu you can select the type of marker and also change the list level. Yes, yes, you can make several levels in a single-level list, but it will not be a full-fledged multi-level list, but rather a single-level list with several levels, something like that. By the way, you can change the list level using the Tab key.

The difference between a full-fledged multi-level list and a single-level list with several levels is that for each level in a multi-level list you can configure not only complex numbering, which will depend on the previous levels, but also choose a different font or even create a full-fledged style for a specific level. This is such a powerful document management tool that we will devote a separate lesson to it ().

If there are not enough markers that are initially presented in the drop-down list, you can use the “Define a new marker” command by calling the “Define a new marker” dialog box; you can select a symbol or a picture as the marker itself; here you can also select the alignment of the marker relative to the “First indent” slider. lines." At first glance, there is no difference between the settings, but nevertheless, it is there, although it is minimal. To make sure of this, it is advisable to select a larger marker, for example, a photograph, and zoom in on the document.

You can quickly convert a bulleted list into a numbered one; to do this, you just need to select the elements of the list and click on the command to create a numbered list in the “Paragraph” group of the “Home” tab. Naturally, such a transformation can be done in reverse order.

Indentations and line spacing for single-level lists

Indentations, both the first line and the text of a single-level list, are adjusted using the ruler sliders or the “Paragraph” dialog box in the same way as setting the indentation of paragraphs in the text, with the only difference being that the indentation of the first line will be the indentation for the bullet or number if it is a numbered list. Left- and right-side indentations for a list act similarly to paragraph ones; negative indentations are also valid, when the indentation on the right or left may extend beyond the boundaries of the document, indicated in gray.

As for the settings line spacing for a list, it is no different from that for an ordinary paragraph and can be done either using the commands of the “Paragraph” group or using the “Paragraph” dialog box.

It is worth paying special attention to the global customization of single-level lists using styles. The fact is that for single-level lists in MS Word the “List Paragraph” style is reserved; accordingly, all changes in this style will affect ALL lists created using the “Create a Bulleted List” and “Create a Numbered List” tools. Moreover, these changes are not limited to adjusting indents or intervals, but allow you to change the entire range of parameters available using the “Styles” tool.

Numbered list

A single-level numbered list differs from a single-level bulleted list only in that in the order of adding elements, the numbering of their values ​​increases, which is logical. Plus, it becomes possible to set the initial value for the number, which, for obvious reasons, was not in the bulleted list. Job Dialog Box initial value" can be called up from the "Numbering" drop-down menu or from the "Define a new number format" dialog box. Otherwise, it's the same bulleted list, with a barely noticeable alignment of the number relative to the first line indent slider, a quick way to become bulleted list, or a single-level list with several levels.

1. Working with Multi-Level Lists (Basics)

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In professional scientific texts Using more than three levels in a multi-level list is not recommended. As a rule, the overwhelming majority of lists are generally single-level, and multi-level lists rarely have more than two levels. Despite this, the author strongly recommends using tool for creating multi-level lists in MS Word even when building single-level lists. The possibilities for creating single-level lists, which we discussed in the previous question, should not be used when constructing professional texts under any pretext. An exception could be a hastily compiled shopping list at a grocery store or a similar list, where there are not the slightest requirements for the quality of the text itself.

According to the author, the commands for creating single-level bulleted and numbered lists in Word are left only for the sake of inexperienced users who try to format text through trial and error, clicking on commands that even remotely resemble desired result. Despite the apparent similarity in the tools for creating lists in MS Word, there is simply an abyss of differences between single-level and multi-level lists. We will consider some of the functionality of working with a multi-level list in this question, and some in a specially designated lesson.

Multi-Level List Basics

To work with multi-level lists, the drop-down menu command is located next to the commands for creating single-level lists in the “Paragraph” group of the “Home” tab. Even the dropdown menus themselves are very similar.

The first visual difference is visible after opening the dialog box "Defining a new multi-level list". There are already familiar commands here: number format, font, and number alignment relative to the first line indent slider.

As for the new settings, their functionality is more interesting.

Firstly, thanks to the “Include level number” command it becomes possible to create complex numbering of a multi-level list: 2.3, 1.5.6, 2.a.5, etc.

Secondly, in addition to the useless possibility of aligning the number itself relative to the first line indent slider, appeared extremely useful features indentation of the position of the number and the text itself in the list from the left border of the document. Such indents can be configured individually for each list level, or you can set parameters for all levels at once. In the latter case, the parameters for the first level are individually configured and an additional indent is set for each subsequent level.

AND, Thirdly, what we will now pay attention to, there is an opportunity to choose what it will be indentation of text from the number itself: without a character (the number is closely adjacent to the text), space or tab (with adjustable tab position). Due to my experience, this parameter is the author recommends setting the position to “space”, because when there is no indentation at all, the list looks ugly, and when there is a tab sign as an indentation, the indentations will be uneven for numbers with different numbers of characters, for example, in a long list, the distance between “1” and “11” will be different. If for the first level the problem seems far-fetched, then for a composite list, say, the third level, it is quite real. On the other hand, if you correctly provide the number of numbers in advance, you can beautifully align the text in your multi-level list.

It seems that we have covered the exhaustive capabilities of MS Word in the area of ​​​​creating multi-level lists, however, we have practically not considered the commands on the right side of the “Define a new multi-level list” dialog box. In fact, that part of the material that we have considered here is only The tip of the iceberg of multi-level list functionality. We will dive into the abyss of the possibilities of a multi-level list in just a few lessons. First, we need to understand in detail the hierarchy of the style structure, and also learn how to work with structured documents.