How to Customize Font Size in Microsoft Word: A Comprehensive Guide

Creating a Custom Font Size in Microsoft Word is a crucial skill for achieving the best possible formatting and readability of your documents. In this guide, we will walk you through the process of setting a custom font size, such as 13.5 points, to ensure that your document meets specific requirements.

Steps to Customize Font Size in Microsoft Word

Open Microsoft Word. Launch the application and open your document where you want to apply the custom font size.

Select the Text. Highlight the text you want to change to a custom font size. You can do this by clicking and dragging over the text or using the Select tool.

Access the Font Size Dropdown. Click on the Home tab on the ribbon. In the Font group, you will see a dropdown menu for font sizes.

Enter a Custom Size. Click on the font size dropdown arrow. At the top of the dropdown, you’ll see a box where you can type in a custom size. Type 13.5 and press Enter.

Apply the Change. The selected text will now change to the custom font size you specified. If you want to apply this size for the entire document, you can go to Font settings, click the small arrow in the bottom right corner of the Font group, set your desired size, and then click Set As Default. Choose whether to apply it to this document only or all documents based on the Normal template.

Tips for Customizing Font Sizes

While most times an integral number of points is sufficient, sometimes you may want more precise control over font sizes. Here are a few additional tips:

Setting Larger or Smaller Sizes: Use keyboard shortcuts to increase or decrease font size. Pressing Ctrl Shift lt will shrink the font size, while Ctrl Shift gt will increase the font size.

Manual Input in the Formatting Toolbar: After selecting the text, you can also enter a custom size directly in the formatting toolbar. Click inside the text field where the current font size is displayed, type the desired size (such as 13.5), and press Enter/Return.

Historical Context: In older typesetting software like Pagemaker, you could specify font size and “leading” (the space from one baseline to the next) separately. While Word does not provide this exact functionality, you can still achieve similar results using the custom font size feature.

Conclusion and Additional Resources

By following these steps, you can easily customize the font size in Microsoft Word to meet your specific needs. Whether you are working on a research paper, a business report, or any other type of document, having precise control over font sizes can greatly enhance the professionalism and readability of your work.

For more detailed guides and tutorials, check out Microsoft's official documentation or explore online forums and communities dedicated to Microsoft Word users.