Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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: Controlling the Bold Text Attribute.

Controlling the Bold Text Attribute

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 31, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Word allows a rich set of formatting attributes for text in a document. You can control the bold attribute for selected text in a VBA macro by using the Bold property. The syntax is as follows:

Selection.Font.Bold = toggle

where toggle is either False (turns off the bold attribute) or True (turns on the bold attribute). If you simply simply want to change the current setting of the bold attribute—bold text becomes non-bold and vice-versa, then you can use a statement such as the following:

Selection.Font.Bold = Not Selection.Font.Bold

The Font object doesn't just belong to the Selection object; it can belong to a Range object, as well. This means that you can also modify the Bold property for a range of text as well as a selection.

Note:

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WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11894) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Controlling the Bold Text Attribute.

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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What is 9 - 1?

2025-02-01 06:20:26

Barry

Another very helpful tip thank you. Often need to toggle something .
However, as I use Styles as a preferred method of formatting I use something like this:
Sub MyBoldText() 'apply Strong style to selected text
Selection.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Strong")
End Sub
Which I run from a QAT button. Most of the time it is just fine - select the text, click the button, move on.

If I change my mind/make a mistake and want to reverse that action, then replacing the one code line above with the following does NOT work...
If Selection.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Strong") Then
Selection.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Normal")
Else
Selection.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles("Strong")
End If
It is Ok the first time but; although it resets the document formatting it does NOT change the underlying style!! (Then the text is shown as not conforming to its style).
Any help will be very much appreciated, thanks.

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