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Some formatting options can be applied to whole paragraphs regardless of the size of the paragraph.

A new paragraph is created everytime you press Enter

Paragraph formatting options include the following:

Alignment -

Line Spacing -

Indents - These are paragraph specific

Tabs - These are line specific

Bulleted Lists -

Numbered Lists -

Borders -

Shading -

There are two ways you can apply paragraph formatting.

You can either define the formatting and then enter the text or enter the text and then apply the formatting.

The default paragraph formatting options give you a left aligned paragraph with single spacing.

If you want to apply paragraph formatting to an existing paragraph just position the insertion point anywhere in the paragraph before applying your formatting.

Word automatically applies this to the whole paragraph.

You can change the formatting for consecutive paragraphs by selecting them first.

The quickest way to delete text is to select it and press Delete. To select a word click on it twice. To select a sentence click at the start and drag the mouse over the text, To select a paragraph click on it three times

Text can be easily dragged and dropped. Select the text hold down the right mouse button and drop. Always include the paragraph mark in your selection

You can select an area of specific text by using the Alt key. Click the area to begin your selection and hold down Alt while dragging with the right mouse button

You can insert line numbers next to your paragraphs if you want to restrict the number of lines. Highlight the text (File > Page Setup)(Layout tab), click line numbers and select "Add Line Numbering"

It is possible to insert a vertical text header down the left hand side of a page

If you are printing envelopes and labels it is possible to change the label font and font size (Tools > Envelopes and Labels) right click

You can let Word format your text automatically as you type using the AutoFormat feature

You can cut and paste multiple selection in one go by using what is called a "spike", pressing (Ctrl + F3) will add an entry to the spike and (Ctrl + Shift + F3) will paste the multiple selections entries on the spike.

You can easily insert right flush, centre tabs & decimal number tabs by togglying the choice in the top right corner by using the ruler.

To move selected text between windows drag it to another window, to copy it hold down Ctrl as you drag

Text can be hidden and this will appear with red dotted lines underneath it in Page Layout view.

You can have fonts as large as 1,600+ points although not is all fonts. In order to format fonts that are this big you must use the (Format > Font) dialog box.

To see all the attributes associated with a paragraph choose (Format>Paragraph) and remember that these attributes apply to the whole paragraph and not just a selection

Widow / Orphan control ??

If you choose your line spacing to "single" then the line spacing is based on the size of the larget character

If you have your line spacing set to "Exactly" then any characters, pictures, graphics etc that are too tall to fit into this space will be truncated to fit

If you are writing text to fit on one page and one or two sentences full on to the next page you can use the "Shrink to fit" feature to fit it onto one page. Always save a backup copy before doing this as there is no easy way to undo

You can easily select the paragraph mark along with the paragraph by pressing Ctrl while you double click the paragraph

To insert some sample text into a document type "=rand(4,5)" then Enter. The first number is the number of paragraphs and the second number is the number of sentences.

If you need to apply the same formatting to more than one item just double click the Format Painter button on the Formatting toolbar and click the text you want to format.

If you think Word is behaving strangely when you select, drag and drop text it is worth checking your settings (Tools > Options) (Edit tab). For more information on the individual settings see the General section at the front

If you type a lot of Two Initial Capitals words then it is worth ensuring that whenever you change and correct the second letter of a word to back to a lowercase the word is added to the exceptions list. Make sure the check box is selected (Tools > AutoCorrect) (AutoCorrect tab) click Exceptions, "Automatically add words to list "is checked

You can have animated text (Format > Font)(Text Effects tab). Text animation is purely for on screen use

The highlight button on the Formatting toolbar can be used to make text or graphics stand out from the rest of your document.

Aligning

Text can be centred, right justified, left justified or fully justified (ie on both sides).

If you want to change the alignment of a paragraph, highlight the paragraph, then click on the desired button on the Formatting toolbar.

Left -

Right -

Centre -

Justify

Step 1 -

The Paragraph mark at the end of your paragraphs contains all the attributes for the entire paragraph

Paragraphs can have space before and after a paragraph. (Format > Paragraph)(Indents and Spacing tab “Before” and “After”. Spacing is altered in increments of 6 points by default, which is considered to be half a line. You can type in other values though.

Never use the Enter key to insert blank paragraphs although it is very quick. To vertically space text you should always use the paragraph spacing associated with each paragraph. Generally there is more space before heading than before a paragraph, and there is less space between a heading and its following paragraph than between two adjacent paragraphs.

What is the Insertion Point ?

There is no need to add extra carriage returns before or after your pargraphs inorder to space out your paragraphs Adjust the paragraph spacing above and below (Format > Paragraph)(Indents and Spacing tab)

Pressing Enter creates a paragraph with exactly the same paragraph formatting as the one before it.

When you press Enter, the new paragraph inherits all the formatting from the previous paragraph.

Step 4 - Things to Remember

Everytime you press Enter you are creating a new paragraph.

A paragraph contains one or more characters including a paragraph mark.