Engraving and Embossing Text

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 11, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365

If you've been a Word user for years and years (okay, for decades and decades), you may remember that you used to be able to "engrave" or "emboss" text, just as you can apply italic or bold to the text. Word removed this type of formatting in Word 2010, but there is a very simple way to get it back: Just save the document in the old DOC format.

When you engrave text, it appears to be sunken into the page, with shadowing at the edges. Engraved text is the opposite of embossed text. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Regular, engraved, and embossed text.

Once you've saved your document in the DOC format, you can then follow these steps:

Choose the text you want to engrave or emboss.
Make sure the Home tab of the ribbon is displayed.
Click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Font group. Word displays the Font dialog box.
The Font tab should be displayed, by default. If not, then select the Font tab. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The Font tab of the Font dialog box.

Select either the Engrave or Emboss check box, as desired.
Click on OK.

You can also play with different font colors and background colors to make the engraved text appear different.

If you don't see the Engrave or Emboss check boxes in your Font dialog box (steps 4 and 5), then it simply means you didn't first save your document in the DOC format.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7793) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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