NOS : Certificate in Computer Applications
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By now you have learnt the process of entering text into a document and editing it for mistakes. The next step is to design the document in a proper format so that it is presentable. The setting of margins, spacing between lines, size of letters, etc. are some of the basic requirements of a good presentation.

At the end of the lesson you should be able to:

• change character formats such as fonts and size and its appearance by making them bold, italic, underlined, etc.
• format documents in terms of line spacing, alignment, etc.
• apply borders and shading to the paragraphs.
• create bulleted and numbered lists

There are two ways of formatting a document. One way is to use the MS-WORD Auto format where MS-WORD analyzes the selected texts and it applies the relevant formats. Alternatively you can also format each and every element such as character, margins, etc. yourself by choosing customized formatting.

After typing a document, you can choose the Autoformat option from the format menu to make the Ms-Word format the text in a default style. Perform the following steps for Auto formatting of text:

• Select the text that is to be formatted by dragging the mouse.
• Choose Autoformat from the format menu.
• Ms-Word analyses the text and applies the relevant formats

Fig. 11.1 Auto Format

A dialog box appears as shown in the Fig. 11.1 after choosing Autoformat where one has to click OK button for default formatting.

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You should note that formatting the character means changing the font, size and colour of the text. It also includes the appearance of character by changing the font styles. Characters can be formatted by

• Pressing the Shortcut keys
• By choosing the Font command from the Format menu
• Clicking the desired button on the Formatting toolbar

Select the text where you want to change the font. On selecting the Font from the Format menu bar, the following dialog box will be appeared as shown in Fig. 11.2.

You can choose the appropriate font from the list box. Some of the examples of different fonts are given below

You can also select a font size from the size list box. Some of the examples of different font point size are given below:

National Open School is in point size 12.

National Open School is in point size 18.

National Open School is in point size 24.

You can select a color for the text from the colour list box. Some of these functions can also be achieved through clicking at the appropriate icon in the Formatting toolbar. You know that when you place the mouse over an icon, the name of the icon comes out. So choosing the appropriate icon from the Formatting tool bar should not be a problem for you.

(a) Boldface

Select the text you want to have boldface and click on the Boldface button from the Formatting toolbar.

B

NOS is in Boldface style

Select the text you want to have italics and click on the Italics button from the Formatting toolbar.

I

Select the text you want to have underline and click on the Underline button from the Formatting toolbar.

U

Boldface, Italics and Underline button toggle between on and off. When you want to remove boldface, italics or underline, you can select the text again and click on Boldface, Italics or Underline button to remove it.

You can add subscripts and superscripts to your typed text. First, highlight the text to be shown as subscript or superscript. Second, click at format, font and subscript/superscript.

Examples: Superscript 40^th

Subscript B_t,

As you can see from Fig. 11.6 Ms-Word offers a lot of options to design your text. In addition to ‘All caps’ and ‘small caps’ options from the ‘Font’ dialog box, you can also use ‘Drop caps’ to decorate your text.

Once the characters have been formatted as per your desire, you can adjust the spacing between the lines according to your requirement. Click on Format and select Paragraph option from the menu bar. A dialog box as shown in the Fig. 11.7 will be displayed.

You can select Single or Double line spacing as per requirement. A sample text of different line spacing is given below.

National Open School is an autonomous organisation under Deptt. of Education, MHRD. It was established in 1989. NOS offers Secondary and Senior Secondary level courses through distance education mode. Besides these courses, NOS also offers various vocational courses. It also offers basic education at elementary level.

National Open School is an autonomous organisation under Deptt. of Education, MHRD. It was established in 1989. NOS offers Secondary and Senior Secondary level courses through distance education mode. Besides these courses, NOS also offers various vocational courses. It also offers basic education at elementary level.

By default, Ms-Word aligns all the text as left aligned. However, you can make the text aligned at right or centre aligned also.

First select the paragraph you want to align and then click on the Left Align Tool from the Formatting toolbar as shown below.

You can also select the Format from the menu bar and then select the paragraph option. From the Alignment drop-down line you can choose the Left option to get the desired effect of left-justified paragraph.

First select the paragraph you want to align and then click on the Right Align Tool from the Formatting toolbar as shown below.

You can also select the Format from the menu bar and then select the paragraph option. From the Alignment drop-down line you can choose the Right option to get the desired effect of right-justified paragraph.

First select the paragraph you want to align and then click on the Centre Align Tool from the Formatting toolbar as shown below.

You can also select the Format from the menu bar and then select the paragraph option. From the Alignment drop-down line you can choose the Centre option to get the desired effect of right-justified paragraph.

After aligning the text, you may like to justify the whole paragraph. For justifying the text, select the paragraph of the text and click the Justification Tool from the Formatting toolbar as shown below

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State ‘True’ or ‘False’.

1. Formatting the character means changing the font, size and colour of text.
2. You cannot add subscripts and superscripts to your text.
3. By default Ms-Word aligns all the text as left aligned.
4. For justifying the text you have to select the paragraph of the text and click the justification tool from the formatting toolbar.

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You can add borders and shading to your paragraph for highlighting your text.

Borders can be drawn around the entire page, around all paragraphs or around specific paragraph. You can apply borders using the Borders toolbar from the menu bar as shown in the Fig. 11.12.

You can click on the appropriate Border icon from the Border toolbar to apply a top border, or a bottom border, a left border, a right border, or an outside border.

The thickness of the borderline can be changed by clicking on the down arrow of the drop down list box and selecting the desired thickness.

You can apply shading to your paragraph of text to make it more prominent or to highlight your text. The shading level can be controlled by using Shading tool available in the Borders toolbar. Select the paragraph you want to give shading and then click on the drop-down list of the Shading style and choose a shading type as shown in the Fig. 11.13.

Alternatively, you can use the Borders and Shading option from the Format menu bar. The following dialog box will appear as shown in the Fig. 11.14.

You can change the color of the border by choosing the desired color from the Color drop-down list box. You can select the different thickness of the border from the Style list.

As you work on a document, Ms-Word starts a new page automatically when the current page is full. These page breaks are called automatic or soft page breaks. To insert and remove Hard page breaks, also called user defined page breaks, bring the cursor to the insertion point where you want the page break. Choose Break from the Insert menu bar or Press Ctrl+Enter. In a similar way you can remove an existing page break by pressing backspace or delete key.

Multiple columns make a document more appealing and sometime it is requirement of the document also as the case of newspapers and magazines where texts appear in multiple columns. Text runs down the left most columns to the bottom of the page, wraps to the top of the next column, continues to the bottom of the page and then wraps either to the top of the next column or if it has filled the last column on the page, to the leftmost column on the next page. Text flows from the bottom of one column to the top of the next column.

You can create the desired number of column before typing out the text or it can be done even after you are finished with typing the text. In order to create the column, click the Column button on the Formatting toolbar and drag to select the number of columns as shown in the Fig. 11.15.

This will create columns of equal width. You can also select the Columns from the Format menu bar. The following dialog box will appear as shown in the Fig. 11.16.

From the dialog box, you can select one/two or three of equal width or you can select left or right presets. The left preset makes the left column narrower than the right and the right preset makes the right column narrower than the left.

You can also adjust the exact width and spacing of the column by seeing the preview in the side box.

You can have a line divider between the column by clicking Line Between button in the box to make your text more decorative.

You can create columns of different width as per your choice or requirement by disabling the ‘Equal Column width’ button in the box and then specifying the different width and spacing for different columns.

You can also insert or remove a column at a later stage. To insert a column break, choose the Break from the Insert menu bar. To remove a column, you can just select the required number of column, which align the text in the required number of column.

Sometime you are required to change the case of your text due to typing mistakes. Ms-Word provides five different types of text case, which you can choose as per your requirements. Highlight the paragraph of text you want to change the text case and then click change case from the Format menu bar. The following dialog box will appear as shown in the Fig. 11.16.

The following five different types of text case are shown in the dialog box.

By choosing this option first character of every sentence will be capitalized and the remaining character will remain unchanged.

By choosing this option all characters of the selected text will be converted into small case.

By choosing this option, all characters of the selected text will be converted into upper case.

By choosing this option, the first character of every word of the selected text will be converted into upper case.

By choosing this option, all characters in lower case will be converted into upper case and all characters in upper case will be converted into lower case.

At times you are required to highlight some of the points of your documents in a list format. Your document may contain list of items which you would like to call attention to, such items can be numbered or bulleted. This improves the organization and appearance of the document.

To add numbers to specific paragraph, select Format from the main menu and then on Bullets and Numbering. A dialog box will appear as shown in the Fig. 11.17.

In order to assign a numbered style you have to select numbered. By default, the bulleted list is displayed. In order to select a bullet style from the dialog box and click on OK to get the new bullet style to the selected text.

Remember that when you add text to the list, the text will also get numbered or bulleted as the case may be.

When you want to remove the numbers or bullets, highlight the text again and click on the Number tool or Bullet tool from the formatting toolbar. In the list, if the number or bullet has to be ignored for a particular line of text, then press Shift and Enter instead of pressing only Enter.

State whether ‘True’ or ‘False’.

1. Boarders cannot be drawn around the entire page.
2. Ms-Word starts a new page automatically when the current page is full.
3. In order to create a column click the column button on the formatting tool bar and drag to select the number of column.
4. The left pre-set makes the right column narrower than the left column.
5. Ms-Word provides five different types of text case which you can choose as per your requirements.

In this lesson you learnt the preliminary concepts in formatting a document. Now you should be in a position to design your document in the required format. You should be in position to apply margins, change the font size of letters, make the letters bold face or italic and justify the text. Also you have learnt the procedure of applying boarders and shading with different colour.

1. Explain the different types of alignment available in Ms-Word.
2. Explain various types of borders and steps to put them.
3. Describe the steps for setting line spacing
4. How will you insert a page break?
5. How do you create columns?
6. List steps for creating bulleted list.

1. (a) True (b) False (c) True (d) True

1. (a) False (b) True (c) True (d) False (e) True

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