Characters

A character is a single letter or number. The paragraph mark is a character.

What is Character Formatting ?

Character formatting is one of the type direct formatting that can be applied to your text.

Character Formatting Options

Font
Font Size
Bold
Italic
Underline
Change Case
Text Highlight Color - The highlight button on the Formatting toolbar can be used to make text or graphics stand out from the rest of your document.
Font Color
Character Spacing

Font Dialog Box

accessed from the Dialog launcher

Any new characters in the paragraph take on the formatting dictated by the paragraph mark.
You can use the formatting toolbar to change the format quickly, without having to got to the Font dialog box.
To quickly change a font size, just select the text and hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys together and press either the greater than or less than keys. Each press will increase or decrease the font size by a percentage.
If you want to copy the formatting to several locations double click the Paint Format button and select each in turn. Click once again or press Esc when finished
The smallest font in Word is 1pt and the largest is 1,636 points. For more precision hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys together with the left and right brackets to increase and decrease the font by 1 point.
Every line in a particular paragraph has the same tab stops in the same location
When inserting tabs ensure that every line that will contain a tab stop is a single paragraph and that every paragraph with a tab stop contains just one line.
Every paragraph has its default set to tabs every half inch. As you add tab stops manually the preceding default stops disappear

Embedding True Type Fonts

This feature is available in Word.
There are 3 different levels of font embedding:
Print/Preview - Supported by most True Type fonts. Fonts are temporarily available while that document is open. The text cannot be changed.
Editable - The above plus the user is able to edit the text.
Installable - Fonts are permanently installed for future use. Most fonts that ship with Windows are installable.

If a truetype font supports embedding then the font will be displayed and printed on computers that don't have it installed.
Some fonts do not allow embedding for example the MS Outlook font.

If an application does not support font embedding, Windows has an internal font mapping system that will substitute it for a font that is available.

Substituting Fonts

If the fonts embedded into a document do not allow embedding then they will be automatically substituted for a font that is available.
The font will still be shown in the font dialog box though !!
You can see a list of the missing fonts by using the (Tools > Options)(Compatibility tab) and slicking on the Font Substitution button.