3 Essential Microsoft Word Formatting Tricks Every Pro Should Know

Microsoft Word goes far beyond basic document creation. As a seasoned user with years of experience crafting professional reports and presentations, I've relied on these advanced formatting tricks to ensure consistency, visual appeal, and precision: embedding fonts for flawless sharing, adding diagonal lines to tables, and adjusting page orientations individually.

Trick 1: Embed Fonts in Your Documents

Sharing a Word document? Ensure recipients see it exactly as you designed, including your chosen fonts. Without the exact font installed, it defaults to substitutes, ruining your layout. Embedding fonts solves this reliably.

To embed fonts:

1. Click File > Options.
2. Select the Save tab.
3. Under Preserve fidelity when sharing this document, check Embed fonts in the file.

Opt to exclude common system fonts to minimize size. For editable files, embed all characters; for view-only, use subsets to keep files lean. File size varies by font complexity, especially with bold or italic variants. This works with TrueType fonts (learn more about OTF vs. TTF fonts here for differences and when to choose each). Check your font license before embedding.

Trick 2: Add Diagonal Lines to Tables

Diagonal lines in table cells create striking dividers, highlighting unique data or categories without splitting cells.

1. Create your table and click inside the target cell.
2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, open the Borders dropdown.
3. Select a descending (\) or ascending (//) diagonal line.

This adds a visual split but keeps the cell intact for single-entry content.

Trick 3: Change Orientation for a Specific Page

In long documents with wide tables or charts, mix portrait and landscape pages seamlessly for optimal layout.

1. Select the text (or place cursor) on the page to adjust.
2. Go to the Layout tab and click the Page Setup dialog launcher (arrow in the bottom-right corner).
3. On the Margins tab, under Orientation, select Landscape.
4. Under Apply to, choose Selected text from the dropdown.