How to manage the text: selection and formatting

We have seen how to create, open, save, store, and which are the tools to manage a WRITER file. Now we can begin to write a text, see text format, and try to change it as we want it to look like by using the buttons on the formatting toolbar.

How to read the toolbar

Here we go! Open a new WRITER file, and save it. Now write something. For example:

"My name is George and I live in London. My wife is Elizabeth and we have two children, Oliver and Mary.
Today is my birthday and I am happy."

Note: in a blank sheet the “cursor” which looks like this I blinks at the beginning and then follows the typed in text.
After having written a text, the cursor may be moved by clicking with the mouse pointer on the desired text passage.

Now look at the buttons toolbar; there is some information about text formatting: font name, font size etc., and the highlighted buttons that describe the corresponding format.

On the example above, you see font name, size, and the buttons hightlighted are: text style “bold”, alignment “left”, linespacing “single”.

Note: some icons have a little triangle on the right, click on it and view the selection options, see below:

How to edit a paragraph

Regarding paragraphs in our short example please note: there are three sentences in two paragraphs.

The sentence ends when you put a full stop. If you continue to write after this full stop, when the current line ends, text automatically will run on to the next line.

If you begin a new paragraph in the text press the “enter” key while you write.

How to edit text and use the formatting options.

First you must “select” what you want to change. This is the procedure:
click at the beginning of the text which you want to edit → drag the mouse holding the button down → until you get to the end of what you want to change (such as a single letter, a word, a paragraph, all text) and then release the mouse button: the text is highlighted (you can recognize this by the background color like in this example) and now you can edit the passage by pressing buttons or selecting options from the menus.

Shortcut tips for highlighting:

to select a word, double click on the word itself;
to select an entire period, triple click on any point of the sentence.

Shortcut tips for undoing a step::

when you have made a change (for example font style) and you don’t like the result, you can press the “undo” icon (or menu Edit → Undo) to return to the previous condition.

Example: type a name

Now you can do some exercises: write a text → select editing and formatting options → change styles, font, paragraph, colors, alignment, linespacing and so on, several times and in different ways.

How to create a numbered or bulleted list

This is the complete bullet and numbering toolbar and the corresponding functions of each button.

Thinking about text formatting , this is one of the very useful features when you write a list (of single words or whole sentences).

For example a list of colours:

Yellow
Green
Red
Black

This list can be formatted with a bullet or a number on the left of each single item.

This is the procedure:
Select text → click on corresponding button on formatting toolbar

Note on paragraph:
In the example above the text is composed by four paragraphs.

So, if we apply the “bullets and numbering” option at the first example this is the result:

because in the example there are only two paragraphs.

<< Back to the list of exercises
Next >>

How to manage the text: selection and formatting