Making text bold, italic, a different size, or a different font is the most-used formatting in Word.
Set in the Home tab's Font group. Every change applies only to the currently selected text — select first, then change.
Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, and Ctrl+U toggle each on or off for the current selection.
| Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+B | Bold |
| Ctrl+I | Italic |
| Ctrl+U | Underline |
A common early confusion
Word has no "type in bold from now on" mode without pressing Ctrl+B first — formatting text you already typed means selecting it first, not retyping it.
Instead of manually setting font/size/bold for every heading, applying a Style (Home tab, the Styles gallery — Heading 1, Heading 2, Normal) sets all of it at once, consistently, everywhere it's used. Styles also matter later: an automatic Table of Contents only picks up text formatted with a Heading style, not text that's merely made bold and bigger by hand.