Session 2: Document Formatting
Formatting is what turns text into a document someone takes seriously. This session covers the full character and paragraph toolkit — fonts, colour, alignment, spacing, indentation, lists, borders — plus Format Painter and Find and Replace, the two commands that make repetitive formatting take seconds instead of an hour.
Learning objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to do each of these without prompting.
- Choose and apply fonts and sizes deliberately rather than by accident
- Use bold, italic, underline and colour with intent rather than decoration
- Control alignment, line spacing, paragraph spacing and indentation precisely
- Build proper bulleted and numbered lists that survive editing
- Apply borders and page colour, and know when not to
- Use Format Painter to copy formatting between blocks instantly
- Use Find and Replace to correct a whole document in seconds
The taught content
Character formatting: fonts, size and emphasis
Fonts fall into two families and knowing which to use is half of good typography. Serif fonts have small strokes at the ends of letters — Times New Roman, Georgia, Garamond — and they guide the eye along long lines, which is why books and printed reports use them. Sans-serif fonts have plain ends — Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana — and they read better on screens and at small sizes, which is why the web and business documents use them. For most Nigerian business documents, a sans-serif at 11pt is the safe, professional default. Use one font per document; two is the maximum and only when one is a heading face and the other is body text.
Size follows the same logic. Body text at 11–12pt, headings at 14–18pt, and nothing below 9pt anywhere a person must read it. Then emphasis: bold for headings and terms that must be found by scanning; italic for titles, foreign words and gentle emphasis; underline is legacy from typewriters and reads as a hyperlink on screen, so use it only for actual links. Text colour should be near-black for body (pure black on a screen is harsher than #1a1a1a) and a single accent colour for headings. Highlighting is a review tool, not a design tool — remove it before you send anything.
Paragraph formatting: the invisible half
This is where beginners lose the most marks, because paragraph formatting is invisible until it is wrong. Alignment has four settings: left (correct for almost everything in English, because the uneven right edge helps the eye track lines), centred (for titles and formal headings only), right (for dates and signature blocks), and justified (both edges straight — it looks formal in print but creates awkward word gaps on screen and in narrow columns, so use it only for printed documents you have checked).
Line spacing is the space between lines within a paragraph: 1.0 is tight, 1.15 is the modern default, 1.5 reads comfortably for anything longer than a page, 2.0 is for documents that will be marked up by hand. Paragraph spacing is different and often confused with it: space before and after a paragraph, measured in points. Use 6–12pt after a paragraph instead of pressing Enter twice — double returns are the number one cause of documents that fall apart when edited, because every later change shifts the whole layout.
Indentation moves a paragraph in from the margin: left indent for the whole paragraph, right indent likewise, first-line indent for the classic book style, and hanging indent for reference lists where the first line starts at the margin and the rest is pushed in. Set these in the Paragraph dialog (the small arrow in the bottom-right of the Paragraph group) rather than with tabs or spaces.
Lists: bullets and numbering
Lists make documents scannable, and Word's real lists are far better than typing dashes. Bullets (Home → Bullets) suit items with no required order — features, ingredients, points. Numbers (Home → Numbering) suit anything with sequence or that you will refer to by number — steps, clauses, requirements. Multilevel lists handle nested structure: main points numbered, sub-points lettered.
The reason to use real lists rather than typing '1.' yourself is that real lists survive editing. Insert a step in the middle of a typed list and every number below it is now wrong and you must fix them by hand. Insert into a real numbered list and Word renumbers automatically. The same is true of bullets: a real list keeps consistent spacing and indentation, while typed dashes drift as soon as someone edits a line.
Borders, shading and page colour
Borders and shading live on Home (for paragraphs) and under Table Design (for tables). A single thin border under a heading, or a light shading behind a call-out box, is a professional touch. A heavy coloured border around every paragraph is not. The rule is restraint: borders are for separating things that genuinely belong apart — a warning box, a quote, a summary — not for decorating everything on the page.
Page colour (Design → Page Color) tints the entire page. It is appropriate for certificates, flyers and children's materials, and inappropriate for anything that will be printed in bulk or read as a formal document, because it burns ink and reduces contrast. If you use it, choose a very light tint and check the printed result before you commit.
Format Painter and Find & Replace: the speed tools
Format Painter (Home → the paintbrush) copies formatting from one piece of text and applies it to another. Select the correctly formatted text, click Format Painter, then drag over the target. Double-click the brush instead of single-clicking and it stays armed, letting you apply the same formatting to many places in a row — press Esc to stop. This is how you make a 20-page document consistent in ninety seconds rather than an afternoon.
Find and Replace (Ctrl+H) is the most under-used command in Word. It finds text and replaces it, but the power is in the options: 'Match case' to distinguish 'CEA' from 'cea'; 'Find whole words only' so replacing 'art' does not destroy 'part' and 'start'; and the Replace All button that corrects a wrong client name across a whole document in one action. Beginners fix documents by scrolling and retyping; professionals fix them with Ctrl+H. Always use 'Find Next' to inspect a few matches before committing to Replace All.
Instructor demonstration
The instructor takes one badly formatted paragraph and rebuilds it live, narrating every decision. Then you rebuild a different one yourself.
- 01
Show the bad version
Open a paragraph typed in mixed fonts, with double Enter between every line, spaces used for indentation, and a title typed at 11pt. Ask the class what looks wrong before changing anything — training your eye comes before training your hands.
- 02
Clear the existing formatting
Select everything, Home → Clear All Formatting (the A with a pink eraser). The document returns to the default style. Starting clean is faster than fighting inherited formatting.
- 03
Set the base font
With everything selected, choose Calibri 11pt. One decision, applied everywhere. Note how much more professional it looks before doing anything else.
- 04
Fix paragraph spacing, not double returns
Select the body paragraphs, open the Paragraph dialog, set Spacing After to 8pt and Line Spacing to 1.15. Then delete the empty paragraphs that were being used as gaps. The document now survives editing.
- 05
Format the title
Select the title line, set 18pt, Bold, Centred, Spacing After 12pt. Compare with simply making it bigger — the spacing is what makes it look like a title.
- 06
Convert typed dashes into a real bulleted list
Select the lines that begin with '-'. Home → Bullets. Then add a line in the middle and show that nothing needs fixing.
- 07
Apply a hanging indent to a reference list
Select the reference lines, Paragraph dialog → Special: Hanging, 1.25cm. Show how the first line starts at the margin and the rest is indented.
- 08
Use Format Painter across the document
Select the correctly formatted title, double-click Format Painter, then drag over each of the three sub-headings. Press Esc. All three now match exactly.
- 09
Add one border, deliberately
Select the summary paragraph, Home → Borders → Bottom Border only. Note the difference between this and boxing the whole paragraph.
- 10
Fix a wrong name with Find and Replace
Ctrl+H, find 'Cyber Elias Acadamy' (misspelled), replace with 'Cyber Elias Academy', tick 'Find whole words only', click Find Next twice to verify, then Replace All. Report the count Word gives you.
Guided practice
A properly formatted one-page document
You are given an unformatted page of raw text — a church announcement, a business memo or a school notice. Rebuild it to a professional standard in 45 minutes using nothing but the tools from this session.
- 01Clear all formatting and set one base font at 11pt.
- 02Format the title: larger, bold, centred, with spacing after.
- 03Format section headings consistently — same size, same weight, same spacing.
- 04Set paragraph spacing after to 8pt and remove all double returns.
- 05Convert any hand-typed lists into real bulleted or numbered lists.
- 06Apply one accent colour to headings only, and remove all highlighting.
- 07Use Format Painter to make every heading identical.
- 08Use Find and Replace to correct at least three deliberate errors planted in the text.
- 09Add one border or shading element where it genuinely helps — and justify the choice aloud.
- 10Save as `Session-02_Formatted_YourName.docx` and export a PDF copy.
The standard we hold you to
One font family, consistent heading hierarchy, no double returns used for spacing, real lists, no stray highlighting, corrections applied, and a printed or PDF version that looks like it came from an office rather than a classroom.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
You press Enter twice to create space between paragraphs
Fix: Set Spacing After in the Paragraph dialog instead. Double returns break as soon as anyone edits the document and they print as visible blank lines you cannot control.
You use the spacebar or tab to indent
Fix: Use the Paragraph dialog's indentation settings, or the ruler's indent markers. Spaces shift the moment the font or size changes; paragraph indentation does not.
You apply bold to whole sentences for emphasis
Fix: Bold a phrase or a term, not a sentence. When everything is emphasised, nothing is. If a whole sentence needs emphasis, it should probably be a separate short line.
Justified text creates ugly gaps between words
Fix: Switch to left-aligned. Justification only works well with hyphenation enabled and a wide column; on screen and in narrow layouts it looks broken.
Format Painter copies more than you wanted
Fix: Select only the text whose formatting you want — not the whole paragraph including its spacing — before clicking the brush. And press Esc when done, or the next thing you select gets painted too.
Replace All destroys words you did not mean to change
Fix: Tick 'Find whole words only' and run Find Next a few times first. If you have already replaced everything wrongly, Ctrl+Z reverses the entire Replace All in one step — but only before you do anything else.
Expert notes
The habits that separate someone who can do this from someone who does it well.
- Styles (Home → Styles) are the professional version of manual formatting: define Heading 1, Heading 2 and Normal once, apply them throughout, and change the whole document's appearance by editing the style. Session 3 uses them for headers, footers and automatic tables of contents. Start using them now even though we have not formally taught them — it is the single biggest leap from amateur to professional documents.
- Set your defaults once: File → Options → Advanced, or right-click the Normal style and Modify. If you always work in Calibri 11 with 8pt after, make that the default and stop setting it document by document.
- Use the ruler (View → Ruler) for indentation and tabs rather than the dialog box. Dragging the small triangles gives you visual control and it is much faster once you understand which triangle controls what — top for first line, bottom for hanging indent, the rectangle for the whole paragraph.
- Before sending any formatted document, switch to Print Layout (View → Print Layout) and read it as a page, not as a scroll. Formatting errors that are invisible on screen are obvious on a page.
Key terms
- Serif / sans-serif
- The two main font families. Serif fonts have strokes at letter ends and suit print; sans-serif fonts are plain-ended and suit screens.
- Line spacing
- The vertical distance between lines inside one paragraph — 1.0, 1.15, 1.5 or 2.0.
- Paragraph spacing
- Space added before or after a whole paragraph, measured in points. The correct way to separate paragraphs.
- Hanging indent
- Indentation where the first line starts at the margin and subsequent lines are indented — used for reference lists.
- Justified
- Text aligned to both left and right margins, giving straight edges on both sides at the cost of uneven word spacing.
- Format Painter
- A tool that copies all formatting from selected text and applies it to other text. Double-click to use it repeatedly.
- Find and Replace
- A command (Ctrl+H) that locates text throughout a document and substitutes different text, optionally matching case and whole words.
- Style
- A saved set of formatting — font, size, colour, spacing — applied by name. Editing the style updates every paragraph using it.
Homework before the next session
Reformat a real document
Find any poorly formatted document you own — an old assignment, a church notice, a receipt template — and reformat it to professional standard. Save before and after versions and compare them.
Build a reusable letterhead
Create a one-page document with a bold title, a rule underneath, three consistently formatted section headings and a bulleted list. Save it as a template you will reuse in session 3.
Practise Find and Replace on a long text
Paste a 1,000-word article into Word, deliberately introduce ten errors, then find and correct all ten using Ctrl+H with 'whole words only'. Record how long it takes.
Type the formatting decisions from memory
Write down: when to use serif versus sans-serif, what size for body and headings, when justified is acceptable, and the correct way to separate paragraphs. This is the exam content.
Assessment rubric
How this session is marked. The certificate for Microsoft Office is awarded on the deliverable, not on attendance.
| Criterion | Passing | Excellent |
|---|---|---|
| Typographic consistency | One font family used throughout with sensible sizes for body and headings. | Deliberate font choice with a stated reason, a clear hierarchy of at least three levels, and consistent spacing at every level. |
| Paragraph control | Uses paragraph spacing rather than double returns and applies consistent alignment. | Sets line and paragraph spacing, indentation and alignment from the Paragraph dialog with values chosen for the document's purpose. |
| Lists | Uses real bulleted or numbered lists. | Chooses bullets versus numbers correctly for the content and uses hanging or multilevel indentation where the structure demands it. |
| Efficiency tools | Uses Format Painter or Find and Replace at least once. | Uses both fluently, including double-click Format Painter for repeated application and whole-word matching in Replace. |
| Restraint | Document is readable and not over-decorated. | Every formatting choice is defensible; no stray highlighting, no unnecessary borders, one accent colour maximum. |
Session questions
Which font should I default to?+
Calibri 11pt for on-screen business documents, Georgia or Times New Roman 12pt for formal printed documents, Arial 11pt when you must be certain the recipient's machine has the font. The safest choice is a font that ships with Windows and macOS — Calibri, Arial, Georgia and Times New Roman all do.
Why does my document look different on another computer?+
Usually because the other machine does not have your font and Word substituted one. Either stick to universally installed fonts, or export to PDF, which embeds the fonts and always renders identically. This is precisely why you send PDFs to clients.
Is 1.5 line spacing unprofessional?+
No — it depends on the document. Academic submissions in Nigeria frequently require 1.5 or 2.0, and documents that will be annotated by hand need the room. Business correspondence and reports usually use 1.0 to 1.15. Follow the reader's expectation, not a rule.
How do I make a heading style apply everywhere automatically?+
Apply a Style rather than manual formatting. Select the heading, click Heading 1 in the Styles gallery. To change every Heading 1 in the document, right-click the style, Modify, and adjust — every instance updates instantly. This is the difference between a document you can maintain and one you must rebuild.
My bullets and numbers keep continuing from the previous list. How do I stop that?+
Right-click the first number and choose 'Restart at 1', or right-click and choose 'Continue Numbering' when you actually want it to continue. Word guesses, and it guesses wrong often enough that knowing the right-click menu is essential.
This session is part of
Microsoft Office
3 weeks · 6 sessions · ₦30,000 · you leave with a formatted document, a working spreadsheet and a presentation