Locked lesson.

Upgrade

About this lesson

Learn to use the Reveal Formatting pane to look beyond surface formatting.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the Word document used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Reveal Formatting.docx
60.7 KB

Quick reference

Reveal Formatting

Learn to use the reveal formatting pane to look beyond surface formatting.

When to use       

Digging deeper into document formatting can be done with the Reveal Formatting pane. Occasionally, you just need to know “why” something looks different inside a document.

Instructions

View the Reveal Formatting Pane: Shift F1

  1. Click the links in the pane to open the corresponding dialogue boxes in order to make changes to the format.
  2. At the bottom of the pane, click the “Distinguish Style Source” so that you can match the format to the corresponding style in the Styles Gallery.

Add the Reveal Formatting button to the Quick Access bar:

  • Click the Quick Access drop down arrow at end and choose More Commands
  • At the top of the next box, instead of Popular Commands, choose All Commands
  • Scroll to find “Reveal Formatting” and double click to add to the panel on the right. Click OK.
Login to download
  • 00:04 All right, it's time to take you a step further into the styles and the formatting
  • 00:09 that is in the background of every Word document, you just can't see it.
  • 00:15 First of all,
  • 00:15 I want you to have the exercise file open that matches this video.
  • 00:19 And my insertion point is actually clicked into the Word, exercise, up at the top.
  • 00:24 Now, I have a tool tip on the screen that says Reveal Formatting, Shift F1.
  • 00:28 When I press Shift+F1 on my keyboard, a box shows up on the right-hand side.
  • 00:33 This is called a Task Pane.
  • 00:35 So my reveal formatting pane, the word exercise where I am clicked, and
  • 00:39 then all the background details of everything about the formatting applied to
  • 00:44 this word are showing on this bar.
  • 00:46 Now notice some of those have underlines.
  • 00:48 Those are links.
  • 00:48 So if I want to look at the details of the paragraph style, I simply click it and
  • 00:53 the paragraph style dialogue box comes up.
  • 00:56 I can hit Cancel there.
  • 00:57 Maybe I want to look at the details of the font, and
  • 01:00 the font dialogue box shows up, and I can hit Cancel on that.
  • 01:05 Look at the bottom of this.
  • 01:06 I have a button that says, Distinguish Style Source.
  • 01:09 Now, I'm gonna turn that button off, and
  • 01:11 the thing that disappeared was the style applied from the style gallery.
  • 01:15 Now when I turn it back on, it says, Title.
  • 01:18 Well, I could have just glanced right up here, it also says, Title.
  • 01:21 Well, we don't always have our Home ribbon selected at the moment we need it.
  • 01:26 And so, here,
  • 01:27 in case you're not looking at your style gallery, it will show you right here.
  • 01:30 I would recommend leaving that button on.
  • 01:32 The next one says, Show All Formatting Marks.
  • 01:35 Well, that's just as good as hitting the paragraph mark on your home ribbon.
  • 01:38 You can see the paragraph marks.
  • 01:39 These are hard returns.
  • 01:40 You can see the polka dots between the words.
  • 01:42 Those are spaces.
  • 01:44 And you can see little tiny arrows over on the bullets, those are tabs.
  • 01:48 So I'm gonna go ahead and turn those off.
  • 01:50 And now, it might be quicker, instead of hitting Shift+F1 and trying to
  • 01:55 remember that, it might be quicker to add this button to your Quick Access bar.
  • 02:00 So I'm gonna turn off my Reveal Formatting pane.
  • 02:03 And we're gonna go through the process to add the Reveal Formatting button to
  • 02:08 the quick access.
  • 02:09 Hit the drop down arrow at the end of the quick access.
  • 02:12 Right down here, we have a button that says More Commands.
  • 02:14 When you're in here, the left-hand panel are the available popular commands,
  • 02:18 right-hand panel are your existing quick access buttons.
  • 02:21 Notice I'm on Popular Commands at the top and if I scroll down into this box,
  • 02:26 I'm gonna look for Reveal Formatting and it's not even there.
  • 02:29 Cuz it's not a Popular Command.
  • 02:30 In fact, very few people even know about this feature.
  • 02:33 So I'm gonna hit the drop-down arrow and choose All Commands.
  • 02:36 Now, about 500 different buttons are available to you,
  • 02:40 make sure to click inside this box to activate it.
  • 02:43 Tap the letter R that will send you down to the top of the R alphabet.
  • 02:49 And now, I've looking for Reveal Formatting.
  • 02:52 And here it is, Review formatting.
  • 02:55 When I double-click, it pops over to the right-hand side.
  • 02:58 When I hit OK, you will now see the Reveal Formatting button on your Quick Access
  • 03:03 bar, looks like a letter A.
  • 03:04 With the Magnifying Glass tool tip, it says, Reveal Formatting,
  • 03:08 teaches you Shif+F1.
  • 03:09 You can turn it on, turn it off.
  • 03:11 Turn it on, turn it off, by the same button.
  • 03:14 All right.
  • 03:15 This is the purpose of the reveal formatting, is if you have to dig
  • 03:19 down into the details of the document that someone sent you, at least you can look
  • 03:24 behind the scenes and get an idea of all the details of what's going on.
  • 03:28 You're gonna learn new things by doing this.
  • 03:31 You're gonna solve puzzles by doing this.
  • 03:33 And you're gonna look pretty smart to your coworkers by doing this.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Gift this course