Create a document and apply character and paragraph formatting, including fonts, bold and italic, alignment, line spacing and styles, to make text clear and consistent

What this dot point is asking

This outcome wants you to create a document and then format it so it is clear, consistent and easy to read. You should be able to change how individual characters look (the font, size, bold, italic, underline and colour) and how whole paragraphs look (alignment, line spacing and space between paragraphs), and you should know why styles are a faster and more consistent way to format than changing everything by hand. In the written paper you describe these steps in order; in the practical you actually produce the formatted file.

The answer

Character formatting

Character formatting changes how selected letters and words look. The main controls are:

• Font (typeface). The shape of the letters, for example a clear, readable font for body text.
• Font size. Measured in points; larger for titles, smaller for body text.
• Bold, italic and underline. Bold for strong emphasis, italic for gentle emphasis or titles of works, underline used sparingly.
• Font colour and highlight. Used carefully so the text stays easy to read.

You apply character formatting by first selecting the text, then clicking the control. If you select nothing, the change applies to whatever you type next.

Paragraph formatting

Paragraph formatting changes a whole paragraph at once, so you only need to click inside the paragraph, not select every word. The main controls are:

• Alignment. Left, centre, right or justified. Body text is usually left aligned or justified; titles are often centred.
• Line spacing. The gap between lines, such as single, 1.5 or double spacing. Wider spacing is easier to read.
• Space before and after. A gap between paragraphs so blocks of text do not run together.
• Indents. Moving the start of a paragraph in from the margin, for example for a quotation.

Why styles save time

A style is a named, saved set of formatting. Instead of making a heading bold, larger and a certain colour by hand every time, you apply the "Heading 1" style once. Every heading then looks the same. If you later decide all headings should be a different colour, you change the style once and every heading updates. Styles also let the software build a table of contents automatically, because it knows which text is a heading.

Showing your steps

In the written paper, questions often ask you to "describe the steps" to format something. Answer in order with the exact feature names, for example: select the title, choose a larger font size, click bold, then click centre alignment. Precise, ordered steps earn the marks.

Examples in context

Example 1. A school newsletter. A student writing a class newsletter makes the masthead a large centred bold title, applies a heading style to each article title, sets the body text to 1.5 line spacing, and uses one accent colour for headings. The result looks consistent and professional and took less time than formatting each part by hand.

Example 2. A formal letter. For a letter, the writer left aligns the body, uses single line spacing inside paragraphs with a blank line between them, and keeps to one readable font with no colour. The plain, consistent formatting suits a formal document and is easy to read.

Try this

• Cue. State two character formatting features and two paragraph formatting features, and say what each one changes. (Character: font and size change how letters look; bold and italic add emphasis. Paragraph: alignment sets the edges; line spacing sets the gap between lines.)

• Cue. Describe, in order, the steps to make a centred bold title at the top of a document. (Select the title text, choose a larger font size, click Bold, then click Centre alignment.)

• Cue. Give two reasons a built-in heading style is better than making headings bold by hand. (Every heading looks the same and stays consistent, and changing the style once updates them all; it also lets the software build a table of contents.)