How To Format A Word Document To Look Professional 13 Steps

To choose a font, go to the Home tab at the top of your document. Select the font you like best from the drop-down font menu at the right side of the menu ribbon. There are hundreds of fonts to choose from, but try to stick to fonts with a simple, classic look to keep your document looking professional and easy to read. Avoid anything overly elaborate or artsy.

While Comic Sans is a popular and easy-to-read sans-serif font, it’s gained a bit of a bad rap for looking childish and unprofessional. Avoid using comic sans if you want your doc to have a polished and mature look.

Type the text you’d like to use for a heading. For instance, you might write something like “Section 1” or “Introduction. ” Select the heading text. Open the Home tab and go to the Styles section of the ribbon menu, at the top right side of the document. Select the heading style you want from the list of styles. For instance, if you’re creating a top-level heading, select Heading 1. For subheadings, choose Heading 2 or Heading 3.

It works well to combine serif fonts in the headings with sans-serif fonts in the body of your document. For instance, you might use Didot for your headings and Gill Sans for the body text. If you don’t want to change the font of each heading manually, go to the Home tab and open the Styles Pane. Select the drop-down menu for the heading style you want, choose Modify Style… and select the font you want.

You can also change the text alignment by going to the Format menu at the top of your screen and picking Paragraph from the drop-down list. Set the alignment to Left in the general settings menu. While left alignment looks best in most cases, there are exceptions. For instance, you will typically center the title and author lines at the top of a paper. You might also choose to center your headings. In most cases, it’s best to avoid using the “justify” alignment, which makes the text even on both the right and left sides. This formatting style works best in documents written in narrow columns, like brochures, magazine articles, and newsletters. [6] X Research source

Word’s default combination of 12-point font size and 1 in (2. 5 cm) margin size is required by a lot of professional citation and formatting styles, like APA and MLA. [8] X Research source If you’re completing a writing assignment for class or a publication, check the guidelines about margins and font size. While you can make your margins smaller, your document will be less readable and pleasant to look at if the text crowds the edges of the page.

You can also use the Layout tab in Word to automatically indent each paragraph. Set the Indent setting in the middle of the ribbon menu to the desired size. For example, set the Left indent to . 5 inches (1. 3 cm). Every time you hit ⏎ Return to start a new paragraph, it will be automatically indented. You can also make these adjustments by opening up Paragraph… in the Format dropdown menu. Set the exact indent size you want in the Indentation section of the settings window. If you’d rather use Tab ↹ to indent each paragraph, you can also adjust the tab stop setting to change the size of the indent. Go to the Home tab and click the Increase Indent or Decrease Indent buttons in the central paragraph section of the ribbon menu. [10] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

You can also simply hit ⏎ Return twice after each paragraph to create an extra line space. To apply your preferred paragraph spacing automatically to the whole document, change the paragraph spacing settings in the Layout tab. Alternatively, go to the Design tab at the top of your document and select the Paragraph Spacing dropdown menu. Select the preset spacing you want to automatically apply the style to your entire document.

If you’ve already started writing your document, you’ll need to select the text you want to format first. Otherwise, simply set your line spacing before you start writing. If your document doesn’t have any particular spacing requirements, you can still adjust the spacing to make it easier to look at. Open the Line Spacing menu in the Home tab to enter a custom amount of space between each line (such as 1. 08 spaces). [16] X Research source

If you find a problem—such as a paragraph marker where there’s not supposed to be one—you can simply delete it to resolve any troublesome formatting issues. For instance, blank paragraphs can sometimes cause unwanted extra pages to appear in your document with no content. You can even fine-tune which formatting marks are visible, if you like. In Word for Windows, go to the File menu, then open Options and select Display. Go to the Always show these formatting marks on the screen section to select which marks you want to see. If you’re using a Mac, go to the Word menu, then open Preferences and select View. Select the marks you want to see under Show Non-Printing Characters.

Open the Format menu and select Font. Select the Advanced tab and check the box next to Kerning for fonts. In the Points and above box, adjust the point size you want the kerning to apply to. It should automatically fill in the current point size for the font you’re using.

Click the Autoformat as You Type tab. Go to the Replace as you type section. Check the box next to Straight quotes with smart quotes. While you’re at it, you can also adjust other autoformatting options, such as replacing double dashes (–) with a single long em-dash (–).

Go to the Home tab and open the Styles Pane. Select the style you want, then open the drop-down menu for the style and select Modify… Make any adjustments you want to the style in the Modify Style window. For instance, you can change the font size and color, or make adjustments to paragraph or line spacing. You can also right-click the style you want in the ribbon menu (or use Ctrl-click if you’re on a Mac) and select Modify Style. If you want a different set of preset styles to work with, go to the Design tab at the top of your document and choose one of the themes from the ribbon menu. This will change the overall look of your document.