Recently, I received the following question from a reader: "I have a one-year old Dell computer with Windows XP. I am looking for a program that lets you do fancy printing and write in a wavy line."
When I read this, I immediately thought of WordArt. Given that the reader has a Dell, the computer probably came preloaded with either Microsoft Office or Microsoft Works. In either case, within the word processing program, there’s a small extra program called WordArt. Usually it’s a button on a toolbar that looks like a slanted capital A. With that tool, you can make text that’s wavy or has other effects.
Here’s how you use WordArt in Word. First, you need to show the Drawing toolbar if it’s not already on your screen. Choose View|Toolbars and click to place a checkmark next to Drawing. A new toolbar appears at the bottom of your screen. Towards the middle of the toolbar, you’ll see the slanted A WordArt button. (If you have ScreenTips turned on and hold your mouse over the button, it says Insert WordArt.)
To use Word Art, click the button and follow these steps:
1. In the Word Art gallery dialog box, click to select a style of text.
2. Click OK.
3. Type your text in the dialog box. You can change the font and size as well.
4. Click OK.
Your text appears over the document along with the WordArt toolbar. You can use the various buttons on the toolbar to change the appearance. For example, you can change the text and control how the document text wraps around the WordArt. If you decide not to use it after all, you can just click to select the WordArt and press the Delete key to remove it.