Almost all those who work with texts, no matter in which office editor they are typed, are faced with the concept of formatting. What are the actions related to text formatting, most users understand in general terms. However, for a complete study of this issue, it is necessary to highlight the main points associated with the term itself.
What is general text formatting?
To start, let us dwell on the very understanding of terminology. In general, editing and formatting text are processes related to how the text typed in a text or other editor will look in the end.
That is, a fully finished document should be readable. This is the most important thing, if not speaking about literacy. Many may argue that any text can simply be read, and no problems. One can object to this with the simplest example. Look at the design of the text in any book, newspaper or magazine. It can be divided into columns, has alignment at the edges, a certain font is used for printing, etc. So what is text formatting? Right! Making the text in such a way that it was convenient to read the text. But often it is precisely on this that the perception of the main semantic load depends, when the mind is busy not jumping from place to place, but focusing on what is written.
Formatting text in Word: basic elements
Now directly about the main question. An understanding of what text formatting is is best viewed on the basis of one of the most popular Word text editors, which is mandatory in all released versions of the MS Office software package.
The main elements, not counting, so to speak, "embellishments" include the following:
- font format (font used, type, size, color, emphasis, etc.);
- paragraph format (indents, tables of contents, lists);
- text alignment;
- the position of the text on the page, etc.
In this regard, the Word Text Editor is a very powerful program that allows you to format any text using template settings and when setting user-defined parameters. But, if you look a little more broadly, formatting can be done not only in Word, but even in spreadsheets like Excel or Access (this is called conditional formatting).
Font format
So, considering formatting text in Word, for a start we ask the simplest question: what does the reader pay attention to first of all? Of course, the font and its size.
Agree that reading an article written using the Times New Roman font is much more convenient for many than if it were typed in some Gothic font or decorated in the old Russian style. It is quite difficult to parse letters, and this distracts from the main content.
The second point relates to the fact that the Word text editor allows you to change the size of the font used. Here, too, have their pitfalls. Try reading text with a font whose size value is set to 5. For many, this will cause difficulties. That is why the use of the 12th or 14th size is accepted as a single standard. Note that most of the official documents or even theses in universities are recommended to be recruited using these parameters.
Separately, it is worth highlighting the use of italics or bold. Basically, such tricks are used to emphasize some of the main points in the main text, which should be given priority when reading.
Paragraph format
Speaking of what formatting is text, one cannot but mention the paragraph format or the indentation used, which can be divided into two main categories - horizontal and vertical.
Horizontal indentation is used precisely to highlight a paragraph (red line) and is set based on the tabulator (Tab key). The default indent value can be easily changed in the settings of the editor itself. Indentation for lists (also by default) is set automatically, which can also be changed.
The easiest method is to enable the display of the ruler, on top of which there is an icon in the form of two triangles with vertices up and down. By changing their position, you can achieve a complete change in position and indentation, and the main text.
Another type is line spacing. As a rule, one and a half interval is used for the same thesis, and for standard texts - a standard single. You can change the parameters, for example, in the version of the Word 2016 editor through the design menu with the choice of the button for the interval between paragraphs, after which you can use the manual style control section.
Page settings
Another important fact that will help to fully understand what text formatting is is the position of the text on the page.
Despite the fact that the editor itself has predefined indentation parameters, they can be changed. So, for example, returning to the same thesis, it is usually recommended to put 2 cm above and below, 1.5 cm to the right and 3 cm to the left. Alignment of the text - in width.
But it all depends only on which area the text document belongs to. In print media, it is often used to reduce indentation with breaking text into columns, not to mention inserting graphics, the position of which can also be changed not only in terms of position on the page, but also by setting the parameters for text wrapping.
Formatting automation
Finally, consider automatic text formatting. Automation of all the processes described above can be done either using the built-in Word templates with their initial choice when creating the document, or by copying the format of the selected text specified by the user.
In the first case, everything is simple (here even the most unprepared user will be able to choose a standard template). In the second - you just need to select the desired fragment and in the main menu use the button “Format by sample”, after which all the parameters of the selected fragment will be applied to the further text.
Conditional formatting in Excel
Many people don’t know that in Excel you can also change the position of text or data in one, single cell, or in all cells on a sheet or in a book. This is called conditional formatting.
In other words, using such a function in Excel, you can perform exactly the same manipulations with text or data as in Word. As a rule, it is advisable to use this in the process of express analysis, when similar or frequently repeated data are found in the table or, conversely, a unique text.
Conclusion
Of course, this is not all that can be attributed to formatting. It did not address issues related to visual design, such as changing the color of text, filling text and pages, resizing pages, etc. But basically formatting consists of the basic elements that were presented above.