Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Quickly Displaying the Font Dialog Box.

Quickly Displaying the Font Dialog Box

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 9, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021

If you want to quickly format some characters in your document, try this trick:

Select the characters you want to format.
Right-click on the selected characters. A Context menu appears.
Select Font from the Context menu. Word displays the Font tab of the Font dialog box appears. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Font tab of the Font dialog box.

Format your characters.
Click on OK.

If you are a keyboard-centric person, then you can get to the same dialog box even faster. All you need to do is select the characters and press Ctrl+D.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10556) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Quickly Displaying the Font Dialog Box.

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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