Word with Screen Reader: Text Attributes

Hello my name is Vikki Vaughan. Today we'll examine using shortcuts commands to select various attributes within a Microsoft Word document. Our task will include selecting text and applying bold, italics and underlining features to change its visual appearance.

Font refers to the visual attributes of the characters used in typewritten or electronic word processing. Microsoft Word has a font submenu that allows us to choose the typeface, size and style of the text. These commands bring visual emphasis to selected words or blocks of text.

Users can choose from various fonts to express individual style or emphasis. As we've discussed in previous videos, the first step in the editing process is selecting text. If you'd like a refresher on how to select words or phrases please refer to Hadley's instructional video entitled, Selecting Text.

Let's start with an opened Word document located on our desktop. The document we will use today is the Constitution. We'll start off by moving to the top of our document with the Windows command of Ctrl + Home. This moves the insertion bar to the beginning of our Word document. In the writing process we occasionally wish to visually emphasize specific words or phrases.

The use of bold, italics and underline serve this purpose. We can even apply all three attributes on a word or phrase. Each of these tasks are easily accomplished with our shortcut commands. Let's emphasize our title by applying the bold format. I'll select all eight words in the title by holding down the Ctrl and Shift key simultaneously and pressing the right arrow eight times.

Screen Reader: The selection Constitution selected of selected, the selected United States selected of selected America selected.

Vikki: Then I'll press Ctrl + B to change the selected text from normal to bold.

Screen Reader: Bold on.

Vikki: While my phrase is selected I can toggle off the Bold feature with the same command of Ctrl + B. Let's do that now. I'll deactivate bold with Ctrl + B.

Screen Reader: Bold off.

Vikki: While we have out title selected, let's apply another attribute to it for emphasis. With all of the words selected, I'll press Ctrl + I to italicize the phrase.

Screen Reader: Italic on.

Vikki: Just as with the bold feature this commands is a toggle and uses the same shortcut command to turn it on and off. I will now turn off the italics by pressing Ctrl + I once again.

Screen Reader: Italic off.

Vikki: Let's say we want to underline our phrase for emphasis. With all of the words in the title selected I'll press Ctrl + U to underline.

Screen Reader: Underline on.

Vikki: If we change our mind and wish to remove the underline, we simply press Ctrl + U to unselect the feature. I'll demonstrate that now by pressing Ctrl + U to remove the underline from our text.

Screen Reader: Underline off.

Vikki: It's important to note that once you apply a specific style all text that is manually entered after the command will continue to be in that style until you deactivate it. So if you don't wish for the remaining text to be in a particular style, you'll want to deactivate the command before you type other words. I'll demonstrate with the word, Bold. By activating the command with Ctrl + B, and typing the word Bold.

Screen Reader: Bold on. B-O-L-D.

Vikki: Then using the same command Ctrl + B or you can use Ctrl and Spacebar to deactivate the command.

Screen Reader: Bold off.

Vikki: All text that I enter after the command will display without bold attributes. I'll type the words, Not Bold to demonstrate that bold has been deactivated.

Screen Reader: Space, N-O-T, Space, B-O-L-D.

Vikki: If you select text with attributes that have already been applied, such as underline, pressing Ctrl + U will remove the underline. If we wish to remove all attributes from a document, we select all the text with Ctrl + A then press Ctrl and Spacebar. Let's demonstrate that now. I'll start off by selecting my entire document with Ctrl + A.

Screen Reader: 27,065 characters selected.

Vikki: I will now apply the underline feature with Ctrl + U.

Screen Reader: Underline on.

Vikki: My entire document is now underlined. To remove this feature with my entire document selected I'll press Ctrl + Spacebar. Keep in mind this command removes all of the attributes we've discussed today. My document is now in a normal mode with none of the words underlined, bolded or italicized.

When we wish to keep our bolded words but remove all of the underline phrases, you'll need to navigate to each of the underline phrases and use the command of Ctrl + U to remove the underlines from those phrases. With these helpful tips you can use Windows shortcuts to apply text attributes. I'm Vikki Vaughan and I thank you for joining me today.