Text, styles and lists

What you can do#

The Home controls apply character formatting to the selected text and paragraph formatting to the affected paragraphs. Use font family, size, emphasis, colour and highlighting to distinguish information. Paragraph alignment, indents and spacing control the shape of the text without adding repeated spaces or empty lines.

Styles are useful when several headings or paragraphs should look alike. A heading style also gives the document structure for navigation and a table of contents. Bulleted, numbered and multilevel lists keep related items together; use list controls when changing levels or numbering instead of typing every marker manually.

Try it#

For a long report, establish a small set of heading and body styles early. This makes later formatting changes easier and reduces inconsistent spacing. If pasted content looks different, inspect its formatting and choose a paste treatment appropriate to the document.

1. Select a title or heading and apply the appropriate style.
2. Select body paragraphs and adjust alignment, indentation and spacing.
3. Select a set of items and apply bullets or numbering.
4. Use Show/Hide ¶ to inspect paragraph marks while tidying layout.