Text formatting

Text formatting

A text without any special formatting gives a monotonous appearance. OpenOffice Writer offers a number of choices for formatting such as Bold, Italics and defining the font, type, and fond size. Bold, Italic or underlined are the mostcommon types of text formatting. Almost all the formatting options are available under Format menu.

1. Changing font style, size and colour

A font is a set of characters in a particular style. Changing the default appearance of the text like changing the font type , size, color, style etc., are called as Text formatting. To make the text attractive and more appealing, various formatting’s like bold, italic and underline can be done by using the following commands given in Table 6.4

Table 6.4 Text formatting shortcuts

The default font type is Times New Roman and the type of font can be changed by clicking on the Font Type icon 

The default size of font is 12 points which can be changed by clicking on the FontSize icon 

The default font color is black and the font color can be changed by clicking on the Font colour icon  which shows the color palette from which the required color can be selected.

Besides the regular formatting Bold, Italics and underline, many other formatting can be done by using the dialog box. The other formatting options can be selected by using Format  -> Character. The Character dialog box is displayed as shown in the Figure 6.20 using which all the formatting can be done at a single stretch with an online preview.

2. Changing Case

Normally any text can be typed in upper or lower case. The text can be changed to different cases like:

 ·              Uppercase (Capital letters)

·              toggle case (reverse case),

·              sentence case (first letter of each sentence Capital),

·              Capitalize every word (first letter of each word capital),

·              lower case. (Small letters)

This can be done by:

·              Select the text to change case

·              Select Format  -> Change case. 

3. Highlighting text

Highlighting is used to draw attention to important information in a text. Highlighting is beneficial because it first asks the reader to pick out the important parts, and then gives an effective way to review that information later.

Highlighting can be applied by selecting the text and click Highlighting icon  , the color palette is displayed, select the required color, and the text is highlighted. Highlighting can be removed by selecting the text and click No Fill from the color palette.

4. Clearing the formatting

Normally text is monotonous without any formatting, so we can format in different ways, after the formatting is applied, it can be removed by

·      Selecting the entire document by Ctrl + A or Edit  ->Select All

·      Clear applied formatting by Ctrl + M