how to make your assignment look attractive on word

10 Simple Design Rules for Professional Microsoft Word Documents

Want to create professional-looking business reports or academic papers? Use these tips for formatting your Word documents.

Microsoft Word is packed with so many features that you can produce pretty much whatever you want with it. But these features don't always result in the kind of beautiful, high-quality, and professional document designs that you may expect.

It's one thing to know everything about Microsoft Word, all of its intricacies and quirks and functions—it's something else entirely to know what makes a great document. Here, we'll show you how to format a Word document to make it look professional.

1. Keep It Simple, Less Is More

Want to know how to make a Word document look good? Just keep it simple, and take advantage of the hidden features that Microsoft Word comes with. If you remember one thing from this article, let it be this, and you'll be able to make the right design decisions in the future!

When writing a document, the content should be the main focus. Document formatting guidelines exist to make that content easier to read and digest.

Eliminate the temptation to introduce eye-catching elements that only serve to distract. Maximize whitespace. Keep your wording tight and revise any wordy sentences or paragraphs. Simple and minimal rules overall.

2. Choose a Context-Appropriate Typeface

Your first big design decision should be which typeface you're going to use. Traditional knowledge says that serif fonts are easier to read in printed documents, whereas sans-serif fonts are better on the eyes when read on a digital screen.

Good examples of serif fonts include Garamond, Georgia, Hoefler Text, and Palatino, while good examples of sans-serif fonts include Arial, Gill Sans, Helvetica, and Lucida Sans.

Skip Comic Sans if you want to avoid one of the most common presentation design mistakes . And whatever you end up using, stick to the same typeface throughout to make your Word document professional. If desired, you can use a different typeface for headings.

3. Use Standard Font Size and Color

You can't learn how to format a word document to look professional without paying attention to the look of the text. Business and academic papers generally use 12-point font sizes, which produce the most readable paragraphs when used in combination with the guidelines discussed below for page size, margins, and line spacing.

Some information-dense reports may sometimes go down to 10-point font size, but never less than that.

In general, it's best to keep your hands off of anything related to colors, especially for printed documents. You'll have to pay more for the color ink, and it won't carry over if the document ever gets copied. For digital documents, reserve colored text for critical warnings and the like. Prefer to emphasize using bolded and italic text.

4. Use Standard Page Size and Margins

Nearly all office documents are formatted to the same page size as they are printed for standard 8½" x 11" pages, known as US Letter size (also known as A4 elsewhere, which is 210mm x 297mm). This is the only size that's guaranteed to be available regardless of which printer you use.

As for margins, most style manuals and style guides call for a 1" margin on all sides of the page, which produces the best readability for line lengths and allows for written annotations if necessary. In Word, you can select Normal under Margins to do so. However, if the document is going to be bound in a binder, you may want to use Custom Margins to increase the side margins to 1½" to accommodate the rings.

5. Align Paragraphs to the Left

You may be tempted to use justified alignment because that's what's used in newspapers, novels, and some textbooks, but it's the wrong choice for office and academic documents. Why is it important to make a document formal? Without formality, your document becomes unreadable.

What you want is left alignment for text. This produces jaggedness on the right side of paragraphs, but it keeps letter spacing as intended by whatever typeface you're using, and that means optimal legibility.

Otherwise, you may end up with typographic rivers , which are extremely distracting and simply look ugly. This is something you certainly want to avoid when you want to make your Word document look professional.

6. Indent the First Lines of Paragraphs

Paragraphs should have no extra spacing between them, and the first lines of paragraphs should be indented to make each paragraph stand out. The only exception is for paragraphs that directly follow a section heading, which can be left unindented because the surrounding context makes it clear that it's its own paragraph.

To make a document look professional, a general rule of thumb is to have the indent size the same as the font size. Make sure you use Word's paragraph styling features to handle the indents rather than using the Tab key!

7. Place Images Between Paragraphs

Inserting images is a part of designing your Word document. It may be okay to place images inside a paragraph and allow the surrounding text to flow around it, and if your organization follows this document formatting guideline, then go ahead and do that.

But generally speaking, it can damage readability, especially in data-driven reports. The safest option, particularly for graphs, charts, and tables, is to put images in between paragraphs and keep them center aligned. That way, your images help to make your document attractive, but they are never vying for attention with the surrounding text. It also helps captions to stand out.

8. Choose Context-Appropriate Line Spacing

To format a document to look professional, the right choice for line spacing (the whitespace that separates a line of text from the next line of text) really depends on what kind of document you're writing.

Academic papers should first follow any academic style guides in place, then prefer double-spacing if no style guide exists. Business and office documents tend to be single-spaced to minimize the number of pages needed when printing, but digital documents may be easier to read if spaced at somewhere between 120-150 percent.

9. Break Up Text With Headings and Lists

The longer the document, the more important headings become. Would you rather read a 20-page report that's nothing but a wall of text from end to end? Or a 30-page report that's organized into proper sections, subsections, and headings? It’s highly likely you’ll prefer the latter.

Lists are also good for breaking up walls of text and drawing eyes to important points. In Word, use Numbering to create numbered lists when counting a set of items (e.g., "the five attributes of a successful entrepreneur") or when providing step-by-step instructions. Otherwise, use Bullets to make bulleted lists .

Just be sure to avoid overusing lists, which detracts readability from your Word document design. This is especially important when it comes to using Word to format a screenplay .

10. Separate Sections With Breaks

When you want to learn how to make your report look professional, you need to get acquainted with section breaks. In Microsoft Word, section breaks allow you to differentiate certain pages with changes in orientation, columns, headers, footers, page numbers, and more. Section breaks come in four forms:

• Next Page: Start the next section on the following page.
• Continuous: Start the next section on the current page.
• Even Page: Start the next section on the next even page.
• Odd Page: Start the next section on the next even page.

If your document is large enough to need chapters, this is the best way to format them in a clean way. Each chapter should be made with a Next Page section break, or the Even Page or Odd Page section breaks if you're going to place it within a binder. We've shown how to remove page breaks if needed, too.

Learn How to Format a Word Document to Look Professional

Unless your organization or school requires a specific layout and format, you can skip the hard work of setting up your own template and just download one instead. This helps you quickly achieve a professional document design.

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How to Format a Word Document to Look Professional

Last Updated: March 14, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Megaera Lorenz, PhD . Megaera Lorenz is an Egyptologist and Writer with over 20 years of experience in public education. In 2017, she graduated with her PhD in Egyptology from The University of Chicago, where she served for several years as a content advisor and program facilitator for the Oriental Institute Museum’s Public Education office. She has also developed and taught Egyptology courses at The University of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago. There are 18 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 29,844 times. Learn more...

Whether you’re writing a research paper for class, composing an article for a newsletter, or trying to create the perfect cover letter, you’ll want your Word doc to look as polished and professional as possible. Fortunately, Word gives you all the tools you need to make your documents stand out and look great. In this article, we’ll talk you through the basics—like how to adjust your font or pick the right paragraph style—as well as some more advanced tips and tricks, like turning on hidden formatting marks.

Formatting Basics

• To choose a font, go to the Home tab at the top of your document. Select the font you like best from the drop-down font menu at the right side of the menu ribbon.
• There are hundreds of fonts to choose from, but try to stick to fonts with a simple, classic look to keep your document looking professional and easy to read. Avoid anything overly elaborate or artsy.

• While Comic Sans is a popular and easy-to-read sans-serif font, it’s gained a bit of a bad rap for looking childish and unprofessional. Avoid using comic sans if you want your doc to have a polished and mature look.

• Type the text you’d like to use for a heading. For instance, you might write something like “Section 1” or “Introduction.”
• Select the heading text.
• Open the Home tab and go to the Styles section of the ribbon menu, at the top right side of the document.
• Select the heading style you want from the list of styles. For instance, if you’re creating a top-level heading, select Heading 1 . For subheadings, choose Heading 2 or Heading 3 .

• It works well to combine serif fonts in the headings with sans-serif fonts in the body of your document. For instance, you might use Didot for your headings and Gill Sans for the body text.
• If you don’t want to change the font of each heading manually, go to the Home tab and open the Styles Pane . Select the drop-down menu for the heading style you want, choose Modify Style… and select the font you want.

• You can also change the text alignment by going to the Format menu at the top of your screen and picking Paragraph from the drop-down list. Set the alignment to Left in the general settings menu.
• While left alignment looks best in most cases, there are exceptions. For instance, you will typically center the title and author lines at the top of a paper. You might also choose to center your headings.
• In most cases, it’s best to avoid using the “justify” alignment, which makes the text even on both the right and left sides. This formatting style works best in documents written in narrow columns, like brochures, magazine articles, and newsletters. [6] X Research source

• Word’s default combination of 12-point font size and 1 in (2.5 cm) margin size is required by a lot of professional citation and formatting styles, like APA and MLA. [8] X Research source If you’re completing a writing assignment for class or a publication, check the guidelines about margins and font size.
• While you can make your margins smaller, your document will be less readable and pleasant to look at if the text crowds the edges of the page.

• You can also use the Layout tab in Word to automatically indent each paragraph. Set the Indent setting in the middle of the ribbon menu to the desired size. For example, set the Left indent to .5 inches (1.3 cm). Every time you hit ⏎ Return to start a new paragraph, it will be automatically indented.
• You can also make these adjustments by opening up Paragraph… in the Format dropdown menu. Set the exact indent size you want in the Indentation section of the settings window.
• If you’d rather use Tab ↹ to indent each paragraph, you can also adjust the tab stop setting to change the size of the indent. Go to the Home tab and click the Increase Indent or Decrease Indent buttons in the central paragraph section of the ribbon menu. [10] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

• You can also simply hit ⏎ Return twice after each paragraph to create an extra line space.
• To apply your preferred paragraph spacing automatically to the whole document, change the paragraph spacing settings in the Layout tab.
• Alternatively, go to the Design tab at the top of your document and select the Paragraph Spacing dropdown menu. Select the preset spacing you want to automatically apply the style to your entire document.

• If you’ve already started writing your document, you’ll need to select the text you want to format first. Otherwise, simply set your line spacing before you start writing.
• If your document doesn’t have any particular spacing requirements, you can still adjust the spacing to make it easier to look at. Open the Line Spacing menu in the Home tab to enter a custom amount of space between each line (such as 1.08 spaces). [16] X Research source

Advanced Techniques

• If you find a problem—such as a paragraph marker where there’s not supposed to be one—you can simply delete it to resolve any troublesome formatting issues. For instance, blank paragraphs can sometimes cause unwanted extra pages to appear in your document with no content.
• You can even fine-tune which formatting marks are visible, if you like. In Word for Windows, go to the File menu, then open Options and select Display . Go to the Always show these formatting marks on the screen section to select which marks you want to see.
• If you’re using a Mac, go to the Word menu, then open Preferences and select View . Select the marks you want to see under Show Non-Printing Characters .

• Open the Format menu and select Font . Select the Advanced tab and check the box next to Kerning for fonts .
• In the Points and above box, adjust the point size you want the kerning to apply to. It should automatically fill in the current point size for the font you’re using.

• Click the Autoformat as You Type tab.
• Go to the Replace as you type section.
• Check the box next to Straight quotes with smart quotes .
• While you’re at it, you can also adjust other autoformatting options, such as replacing double dashes (--) with a single long em-dash (–).

• Go to the Home tab and open the Styles Pane .
• Select the style you want, then open the drop-down menu for the style and select Modify…
• Make any adjustments you want to the style in the Modify Style window. For instance, you can change the font size and color, or make adjustments to paragraph or line spacing.
• You can also right-click the style you want in the ribbon menu (or use Ctrl -click if you’re on a Mac) and select Modify Style .
• If you want a different set of preset styles to work with, go to the Design tab at the top of your document and choose one of the themes from the ribbon menu. This will change the overall look of your document.

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• ↑ https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/business-communication/choosing-fonts-for-business-documents/1/
• ↑ https://accessibility.psu.edu/legibility/fontface/
• ↑ https://iteach.msu.edu/my-campus-ties/groups/accessible-course-design-learning-community/stories/170
• ↑ https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-typography-determines-readability-serif-vs-sans-serif-and-how-to-combine-fonts-629a51ad8cce/
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/align-text-left-or-right-center-text-or-justify-text-on-a-page-70da744d-0f4d-472e-916d-1c42d94dc33f
• ↑ https://ontariotraining.net/to-justify-or-not-to-justify-text/
• ↑ https://www.ferrum.edu/downloads/careers/cover-letters.pdf
• ↑ https://columbiacollege-ca.libguides.com/microsoft-word/margins
• ↑ https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/paragraph-format
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/set-tab-stops-and-paragraph-indents-in-microsoft-word-34361115-2b5a-9fcc-2d34-9d7c9e007b71
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/job_search_writing/job_search_letters/cover_letters_1_quick_tips/quick_formatting_tips.html
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-spacing-between-paragraphs-ee4c7016-7cb8-405e-90a1-6601e657f3ce
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_general_format.html
• ↑ https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/word2013/line-and-paragraph-spacing/1/
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/show-or-hide-tab-marks-in-word-84a53213-5d02-404a-b022-09cae1a3958b
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-the-spaces-between-text-e9b96011-1c42-45c0-ad8f-e8a6e4a33462
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/smart-quotes-in-word-702fc92e-b723-4e3d-b2cc-71dedaf2f343
• ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/customize-or-create-new-styles-d38d6e47-f6fc-48eb-a607-1eb120dec563

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9 Best Ways to Make Assignment Look Presentable

Table of Contents

Assignment writing is one of the important tasks that you can’t escape from during your academic life. But besides composing the content on a particular topic, it is necessary to draft the assignments in a well-structured manner by following certain formatting rules and guidelines. Most importantly, if you format your assignment properly and attractively, then your chances of getting high scores will also increase. In general, there are some effective ways to make your assignment look presentable. So, by just following those simple ways, you can give a professional yet attractive look to your assignment in a way that has the power to grab the attention of your readers as well as faculty.

Remember, to write an attractive assignment, you need to concentrate the most on your presentation style. If you are unsure how to present or format your assignment, then read this blog. From here, you can learn the important presentation tips to be followed while writing an assignment .

9 Simple Ways to Make Your Assignment Look Presentable

In case, you want to present your assignment neatly, then this is what you should do.

Use ideal font styles

• Develop a catchy title page

Add headers and footers

• Adhere to the spacing guidelines

Use headings and subheadings

Explain with examples, include visual components, add the references, never overwrite the content.

When it comes to presentation, the first and foremost thing that you need to consider is the font. Your content should be in a readable format. So, prefer to use fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri of size 11 or 12.

To make the content look neat, use black font text on a white background. For highlighting the important keywords, you can use Bold or Italics. Avoid using colors and stylish fonts.

Create a catchy title page

The title page is the first thing your readers will notice about your “assignment look presentable”. So, create a catchy title page with all the necessary information about you and your assignment topic.

To make the title page look desirable, use a professional template and include details such as full name, registration or roll number, course name and course code, the title of the assignment, and due date. For an appealing look, this information should be formatted at the center of the page.

Adding headers and footers is an essential part of the assignment writing process. In the header and footer, you can add details such as your name, roll number, course number, and page number.

Make sure to give page numbers to every page of the assignment except the title page and the references or citation page. Adding the page numbers will help your teachers with easy navigation. So, never skip it.

Stick to the spacing guidelines

Similar to the font, extra attention should be given to the spacing. If your university has any specific spacing rules, then follow them. Otherwise, you can use 1 or 1.5 spacing.

Leave a blank line between each paragraph. Instead of using block justify, use the left-justify option for presenting your assignment. Always start a question on the next page if the answer is very long. Throughout the assignment, maintain consistent spacing.

Writing the content continuously without any breaks and headings will give a messy look. So, to provide a better structure to your assignment, give a short and catchy heading. It should give a hint to your readers about what your paragraph discusses and hence using the relevant words is advisable. Also, if needed, use subheadings to explain any important points within a paragraph.

It is always a good idea to explain the concepts with relevant examples. So, research the topic and provide valid examples supporting the topic of discussion. Using examples to explain a topic will be helpful for the readers to understand, and it will also give authentic value to your assignment.

Like the examples, to make your assignment look presentable, you can include visual elements like images, tables, diagrams, charts, and graphs.

If your page is filled with text, then it may not look appealing. Most importantly, the readers will get bored reading your assignment. Usually, the visual elements have the power to draw the attention of the readers and hence include the visual objects related to your topic in the middle of the text for an interesting read. Also, when adding any visual element, make a note to give numbers and captions for them.

The reference list is one of the important things that need to be appended to the assignment at the end. It should list the sources that you have referred to while writing the assignment. You can use different styles or formats to list your references or stick to the University reference quoting guidelines if there are any.

If you are writing your assignment by hand, never overwrite the content as it may give a clumsy look. When writing a lot of information, it is natural to make errors. So, be careful and write content without overwriting. This point can be ignored if you use MS Word or any other word processor for writing the assignment.

We hope you are now clear about the best ways to make your assignment look presentable. Especially, while you prepare your assignments, try to format your content as per the effective ways presented above. To be specific, pick a template that is appropriate for your content and begin writing your assignment in a well-structured manner. In case, your paper looks dull or if you fail to incorporate the formatting guidelines in your academic paper, feel free to approach us immediately.

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Formatting your assignments

Illustrated step-by-step guides to help you understand the formatting and presentation expectations of university assignments.

Introduction 

Although formatting your essay, report or dissertation can feel like a lesser priority than the process of research and writing itself, it is an important way to ensure your ideas are given the spotlight through visually accessible, professional presentation. Formatting can be a minefield, especially when you’re formatting at the last minute; it’s important to leave a few days at the end of your essay writing process for working on your formatting, and to spend some time familiarising yourself with the different aspects of formatting.

301 Recommends:

Our Essay Structure and Planning workshop will outline how to analyse your essay question, discuss approaches logically structure all your ideas, help you make your introductions and conclusions more effective, and teach how to link your ideas and ensure all essay content flows logically from the introduction.

Below, you will find some general introductions to the key areas. 

Action: know the rules 

Because formatting rules can vary greatly depending on your department or assignment, it’s crucial to check the formatting specifications in your assignment description/rubric, and any general departmental presentation standards, as a first port of call. Many referencing systems also have specific rules about how to format your work, so make sure to familiarise yourself with the university library’s referencing guides . Many referencing systems also have more detailed style guides available via their websites.

Formatting key information  

Assignment cover sheets .

In some departments, you may be expected to include a cover sheet on the front page of your assignment. This is a page including key information about your assignment, such as your module number, student registration number, essay title, and submission date.

You may be asked to submit a plagiarism declaration and to make your markers aware of any disabilities through the yellow sticker system . If you are asked to include a cover sheet in your assignment, your department should make you aware of where you can access this.

Assignment titles

Place your assignment title at the top of your first page, either centre or left aligned, in bold font. At university, you may be assigned a pre-designed essay title/question, or asked to select from several possible titles. You may also be asked to design your own essay title. Here are some top tips on designing your own title:

• To bring focus to your essay, draft a working title at the essay planning stage. You can come back and review this title in light of your finished essay draft.
• Make sure to use action words in your essay title that reflect the skills your assessors are looking for, both in the assignment description and the marking criteria you have been given. For example, if heavy emphasis is placed on critical analysis, you could use a title like ‘Analyse the effect of…’ See this glossary of essay terms , containing examples that you can use in your own titles. 
• The action words you choose can also help you to reflect the structure of the essay in your question. For example, an essay using the action word ‘Discuss’ might use a for/against/conclusion or advantages/disadvantages/conclusion structure, or an essay using the term ‘Analyse’ might break an issue down into parts, e.g. into key themes, to understand its meaning as a whole. Think about the type of essay you want to write: do you want it to be comparative, look at several topics equally, or do you have a clear argument that you want to put forward? You can then create a question that gives you the opportunity to approach the topic from your own perspective.
• Make sure to include the main terminology you are working with in your assignment title.
• Make sure your question has a realistic scope, without being so broad that you cannot answer it within the limitations of your essay. To limit your question, you could include any limiting factors you are working with, such as specific time periods, geographical regions or sub-themes within the overall topic area. For example, in the title ‘Evaluate the proposition that a global monoculture will destroy diversity and difference’, the broad topic of global monoculture is limited down through a specific sub-focus on diversity and difference.

Stating word counts 

Depending on the instructions you have been given, you may be asked to state your word count, either on your cover sheet or at the beginning of your essay. If you are asked to include this information, make sure your word count accurately reflects the assessment guidance: for example, are references included in your word count?

Visual clarity  

Line spacing .

Most assignment descriptions specify that you should increase the space between each line on the page, from the standard 1.0 spacing to either 1.5 or 2.0 spacing. You are asked to do this to make the essay more visually accessible and easier to read, by breaking up the number of lines on each page. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to line spacing in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Fonts 

All non-examination based assignments should be word processed rather than handwritten. Most assignment descriptions will specify that for visual clarity, and to ensure a professional appearance, you should use a plain, sans-serif font such as Arial. For readability, this should be in 11 or 12 point size. Check your departmental or assignment guidance for any specific rules about font choices. 

Page numbering, headers and footers  

Including page numbers in your assignments makes them more accessible. Depending on the departmental guidance you have been given, you may be asked to include these in either the header or the footer of your essay (the blank space above and below where the text would go on a normal page in a word processor). It may also be helpful to include your registration number and the module code of the essay in the same header or footers that specify the page number. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to adding page numbers and using headers and footers in Microsoft Word and Google Docs. 

Page layout   

Margins .

A margin is the amount of blank space on either side of a paragraph in a normal word processor. Traditionally, assignment descriptions specified that the margins should be made wider at the binding edge (the left hand side) of the page, to allow for easier reading of printed essays. However, with the shift to online essays, you might not be asked to do this any more and the default settings on your word processor are likely to be sufficiently wide.

For printed dissertations and theses, you may receive specific guidance about the suitable layout of margins, as these are more likely to be printed: see this university guide on formatting PhD theses . 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to adjusting margins in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Paragraph alignment 

Most formatting instructions specify that paragraphs should be lined up in a straight line (aligned) on the left hand edge, but left jagged on the right hand edge (like this page). This is called left alignment, or flush-left style, and should be the default alignment setting for your word processor. This style can be helpful for visual accessibility, but check any specific instructions you have been given by your department to see which style of alignment you have been asked to use. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to adjusting paragraph alignment in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.  

Paragraph indentation

You may be asked to add indents to your paragraphs: an indent is an additional small gap between the margin and the beginning of a paragraph (it makes a ‘dent’ in the first line of your paragraph). Indents are used to provide extra clarification that the reader is starting a new paragraph after finishing the last one: therefore, they should not be used in the first paragraph of your essay. Indents are not always required, and whether you are expected to use them may depend on your referencing style , and any formatting instructions you have been given by your department.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to indenting paragraphs in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Formatting referenced material 

Footnotes and endnotes .

Some referencing systems require you to use footnotes or endnotes to format your references (make sure to check the library’s referencing guide to familiarise yourself with the expected format of your referencing style). Inserting a footnote into your word document when you have cited from a source adds a superscript number (a number formatted in a smaller font) to the sentence. It creates a note with a matching number at the bottom of the page you are working on (in the footer), which you can add the reference information to.

Endnotes work in the same way, but instead of appearing at the bottom of the page, the reference list appears at the end of the document.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to manually inserting footnotes and endnotes in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.  

References and bibliographies  

Instead of, or alongside footnotes/endnotes, some referencing systems ask you to include a bibliography and/or a reference list at the end of the essay (make sure to check the library’s referencing guide to familiarise yourself with the expected format of your referencing style). A reference list is a list of all the sources you have directly referred to in the essay, which could be ordered numerically or alphabetically, depending on your referencing style.

A bibliography could be used alongside, or instead of, a reference list, depending on your referencing style; here, you list all the sources you have consulted that have influenced your ideas, whether they are included in the essay or not. The way this is ordered also depends on your referencing style. 

If you auto-generate your citations in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you can auto-generate your bibliography instead of creating it manually: instructions for doing so are in the resource below. If you use a different reference manager, such as Mendeley, Zotero, or Endnote, these have their own specific instructions for auto-generating bibliographies. See the reference management resources offered by the university. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to manually or automatically formatting a bibliography or reference list in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Block quotations  

When you need to include a quotation in your essay that is three or more lines long, you can add this as a block quotation. A block quotation appears on a separate line to the other parts of the paragraph, and is indented (i.e. there is a wider gap between a block quotation and the left-hand margin than there is between the rest of the paragraph and the left-hand margin). Block quotations aren’t placed in quotation marks, so the indentation is used to indicate that you are using a quotation.

Check your referencing guide and any departmental guidance to learn more about the specific rules on formatting block quotations in your department. Because they take up large chunks of your word count, and break up the flow of your texts, make sure to use block quotations sparingly: they are especially helpful when you are going to perform close analysis of a large section of text. For more information on different types of quotation and how to use them, see our workshop on paraphrasing and using academic sources.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to formatting block quotations in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Advanced formatting 

Headings and contents tables .

Most standard short essays do not include headings, other than the essay title and reference list and/or bibliography. Section headings may be required for some longer or more structured types of academic writing, such as reports; reports often follow a very closely prescribed structure, so it is essential to pay very careful attention to the specific guidelines issued with your brief. Make sure that any system you use for numbering your headings and subheadings is consistently applied throughout the document.

Depending on the advice you have been given, and the length and complexity of a lab report, you may also be required to include a table of contents to help the reader navigate between headings. Contents tables are generally standard practice in longer assignments such as dissertations and theses. Make sure to check any departmental guidance you have been given about formatting reports.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to formatting headings and contents tables in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

301 Recommends: Scientific Writing and Lab Reports Workshop

This workshop  will help you to familiarise yourself with some of the specific expectations associated with this assignment format.

Figures and tables 

Some kinds of essays, dissertations and reports will require you to make use of figures (pictures, diagrams, and graphs) and tables (any data in a table format). Figures and tables are normally numbered in sequence, e.g. ‘Table 1’, ‘Figure 4’, and are directly referred to in the text according to their number, rather than according to their location on the page (e.g. ‘as shown in Table 2’ rather than ‘as shown below’). 

If your text is of dissertation or thesis length, or if your text has several figures, it may also be helpful to include a list of figures immediately after the table of contents. Some referencing guides have specific rules about presenting and referencing tables and figures, so make sure to familiarise yourself with these and carefully read any specific instructions about figures and tables in your assignment brief. 

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to inserting figures and tables and creating lists of figures/tables in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Top tips for formatting tables and figures:

• Make sure that any tables or figures you use are placed below the paragraph where you refer to them, and that you have directly referred to all figures and tables in the text of the essay.
• The caption for a table usually acts as its title, so this is placed above the table in the document. The caption for a figure is usually placed underneath the figure. Do not include unnecessary additional titles in the graph image itself, if the title is already included in your image caption. 
• Make sure to label your captions consistently, choosing between ‘Fig.’ or ‘Figure’ and consistently using either a full stop or a colon after the label (i.e. ‘Figure 1:’ or ‘Fig. 1.’) 
• Your caption should clearly and succinctly explain what the figure or table is. If the figure is taken from an external source, you must provide a reference that accurately reflects its copyright status (see these university library guides to inserting and attributing images and figures in university work). 
• Make sure to include legends in any charts you use (a key that helps to explain the data in the chart). Any data series you use should be clearly distinguishable from each other (e.g. avoid printing a report with coloured graphs in black and white!) If you are only using one series of data, a legend is not always necessary. 
• Make sure tables are clear and easy to read, using sans serif fonts, a readable font size, and avoiding unnecessary use of colour. 
• Make sure graphs are clear and easy to read, with clearly and appropriately labelled axes. Be wary of 3D effects that may obscure the clarity of a graph.
• Make sure to avoid presenting the same information in a graph and a table.
• Images and figures in printed essays, such as dissertations and theses, should be large enough for the text and numbers to be legible on the printed copy. Make sure they do not extend beyond the print margins of the document. 

301 Recommends: Displaying Data in Graphs and Tables Workshop

This workshop will provide more technical advice on using graphs and tables in your work. See also this Engineering department guidance on formatting graphs and tables in Engineering lab reports.

Appendices 

Appendices commonly appear in dissertations, theses, and lab reports. An appendix provides supporting information that gives the reader a better understanding of the essay, but that might be too long, detailed or awkward to insert into the main body of the essay without breaking up its flow. Interview questions or transcripts, sample questionnaires, raw data, figures, photographs, large/complex datasets, and diagrams are all examples of information that could be included in an appendix, if it is relevant to do so.

The reader should be able to understand the essay without reference to this supporting information, as all the most important and relevant information needed to answer the question should be included in the body (i.e., the appendix should not be used to make room for content that doesn’t fit within your word count). Your appendices must be clearly signposted and explained in the body of your report, highlighting any information that is essential for your reader to understand. Do not include any appendices that are not referenced in the text itself.

The appendices should be placed in numerical or alphabetical order, and signposted according to this specific system (e.g. ‘Appendix B indicates that…’) They should be clearly labelled, using headings that match up to the in-text reference. Appendices usually appear at the very end of the assignment, after your references/bibliography. Make sure to list any appendices used in your table of contents; if you have been instructed to do so by your department or within your referencing system, you could include a list of appendices separate to your contents list. 

The specific format of the appendix heading, and the reference made to the appendix in the text, depends on your referencing style , so make sure to carefully review this information before you design your appendices.

Download this step-by-step illustrated guide to inserting appendices and creating lists of appendices in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

Tips and resources

• Use this 301 proofreading checklist to check over your work when you are finished.
• Use the University Library referencing guide for advice about referencing and formatting that is specific to your referencing style. If you need extra clarification about formatting rules, it is often possible to download an extended style guide from the official website for a specific referencing system. 
• For further training on referencing, using reference generators, and using images in your work, see the University Library workshop programme .

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Erin Wright Writing

Writing-Related Software Tutorials

How to Create and Customize Headings in Microsoft Word (PC & Mac)

By Erin Wright

This tutorial shows how to create headings in Microsoft Word. First, we’ll look at how to create headings using Word’s built-in styles. Then, we’ll look at how to customize Word’s built-in heading styles to your preferred font, font size, alignment, and color.

Table of Contents

How to Create Headings Using Word’s Built-In Heading Styles

How to customize word’s built-in heading styles.

This tutorial’s companion video shows all the steps in real time.

Watch more than 250 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel .

Before jumping to the tutorial, let’s discuss the importance of using Word’s heading styles.

Why Are Heading Styles Important?

You can make any text in Word look like a heading by using a large font size. However, you won’t have access to several important features if you use a large font size rather than Word’s official heading styles. For example, Word’s heading styles help you perform the following tasks:

• Create an automatic or custom table of contents
• Create bookmarks in a PDF using Adobe Acrobat
• Use Word’s outline feature
• Use Word’s Navigation pane

Most importantly, screen reading software can identify your heading hierarchy based on Word’s styles. If you only use a large font size for headings, people who use screen readers will have less information about how your document is organized.*

The images below are from Word for Microsoft 365. The steps are the same in Word for Microsoft 365 for Mac (a.k.a., Word for Mac), Word 2021, Word 2019, and Word 2016, and similar in Word 2013 (PC only).

The following steps show how to create headings using Word’s built-in styles.

• Select the text you want to turn into a heading. (Or, move your cursor to a blank line where you want to type your new heading during the next step.)

• Select the Home tab in the ribbon.

• Select the appropriate heading level in the Styles group. (If you didn’t select existing text during step 2, type your new heading text after making your selection.)

The selected text will be formatted with the new heading style immediately.

• Deselect the heading and then press Enter (PC) or Return (Mac) on your keyboard to move your cursor to the next line. The heading formatting will automatically turn off.

5. Save your file to save your new heading.

The following steps show how to customize the built-in heading styles in an individual Word document.

There are many ways to change styles in Word. For this tutorial, we’ll stick with the basics: font, font size, emphasis (i.e., bold, italic, or underlined), color, alignment, spacing, and indentation.

• Select the Home tab in the ribbon (see figure 1).
• Right-click (PC) or Control-click (Mac) the heading level in the Styles group, and then select Modify from the shortcut menu.

• Make all necessary formatting changes in the Modify Style dialog box. Here are the eight basic modifications:

B. Font size

C. Emphasis

D. Font color

E. Alignment

F. Line spacing

G. Spacing before and after

H. Indentation

• (PC Users) Select Only in this document to ensure that your customized style is limited to your current document.

• (Mac Users) Ensure that Add to template is not selected to limit your customized style to your current document.

• Ensure that Automatically Update is not selected. (If Automatically Update is selected, you won’t be able to edit the styles of individual same-level headings.)

• Select the OK button.

Your changes will be applied to all existing text using the heading style you just customized.

• Save your file to save your changes.

Do you want to create your own custom heading styles separate from Word’s built-in styles? Check out “ How to Create a Custom Heading Style in Microsoft Word ” and “ How to Create a Custom Heading Style in Microsoft Word for Mac .”

Or, do you want to add numbers to your headings?  Check out “ How to Add and Modify Heading Numbers in Microsoft Word (PC & Mac) .”

Related Resources

How to Create Run-In Headings in Microsoft Word (Indented & Left-Aligned)

What Is Headline-Style Capitalization?

How to Capitalize Hyphenated Words in Titles and Headings

*Visit “ Make Your Word Documents Accessible to People with Disabilities ” from the Microsoft Office Support website for an in-depth list of ways to make your document accessible to the widest audience.

Updated October 27, 2023

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Most Effective Tips for Writing an Impressive Assignment

When in college, you have to accomplish all of your assignments as part of your education. One of the most common assignments is written essays that will contribute to your grade at the end of your course. 

But you might feel apprehensive when you receive such an assignment, especially if it's your first time. You might not feel like you have the necessary skills to write a good essay. But there are certain tips you can use to write a good assignment and lay your apprehensions to rest.

Research and plan

When you take on a course, you will receive a reading list. Familiarize yourself with it right away because your professors will choose texts from this list that will specifically help you with your tasks and assignments. Reading what's on your list will provide you with valuable insight into the topics you have to write about. It will make life easier for you when you need to write an assignment.

After researching, you should make a schedule for writing your assignments. Stick to your schedule. Also, double-check your deadline so you won't have to feel overwhelmed when you realize that your deadline is right around the corner. Break down your time and tasks into  more manageable chunks  so that you will always be on top of your work. Make a schedule that consists of mini-deadlines. Knowing that you have completed a task will keep you motivated.

Understand your assignment and take notes

Before starting your assignment, make sure that you understand it because writing an essay that contains irrelevant information or isn't coherent will prove disastrous. You should always know what you're doing and what you need to convey. If needed, rereading the instructions will help you understand what's expected of you. Moreover, you also need to determine how long the essay should be and how you will proceed with it.

Note-taking is another important aspect of writing. Before you start, you must collect various materials and resources relevant to your topic. You should also create an outline that will guide you. Go through various research materials, then take down notes on the most crucial information that you can include in your work. The writing process will become more manageable when you have all of the information you need.

Assignment writing by professionals

As a student in college, you have the option to ask for help when you need to complete an assignment and you have no time to do it. Since written tasks are an unavoidable aspect of college education, the best thing you can do is to seek assistance when you need it. The writers at AssignmentBro  helped with my assignment writing  in college. Thanks to their professional writers, I still had plenty of time to study and tackle my other responsibilities.

Use various resources

Aside from the deadlines and instructions that your professor will provide, they might also recommend some resources to you. Sadly, this is something that many students tend to overlook. For instance, for you to understand how your professor will grade your assignment, you will need to examine their rubric. This is a chart that provides information on what you must do. You will also learn about the objectives of the assignments or the learning outcomes.

Other resources you might receive include reading lists, lecture recordings, discussion boards, and sample assignments. Usually, you will find all of these resources in an online platform known as a Learning Management System (LMS). Research has shown that students who use LMS tend to get higher grades. If you still have any questions, you can ask your professor either online or offline.

Determine the objective and structure of your assignment

The next thing you need to do is to define the objectives of your written work and its structure. This is where you will determine the pattern of a well-written assignment. You want to make your work look impressive in the eyes of your reader. One way to accomplish this is to include more theoretical content and details in your essay. 

Make sure all of your paragraphs flow smoothly

It's not enough for the essay writing project assigned to you to provide enough information. It's also important to remain coherent. You must link each paragraph to each other. 

This will keep your reader  connected with the content . To achieve this, you need to go back to your plan for your assignment, then search for significant concepts that will help you connect the paragraphs smoothly. Here's an easy tip to do this - include phrases or words that will attract the eyes of your readers while supporting the context of your written assignment.

University life is full of challenges. One of which is the writing of assignments that will require higher communication, critical thinking, and information gathering skills that you may have practiced in high school. Instead of feeling daunted because of your assignments, use the tips you learned to make things easier for you.

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Five Effective Tips To Make Your Assignment Look Attractive

Creating assignments can be one of the most challenging parts of your student life. From collecting data to compiling it effectively, you may feel challenged every step of the way. After all, it is a matter that can take several days to reach its end.

While every step has its own challenges, every student can agree that making their assignment attractive is one of the most important things.

It is one of the best ways to make your assignment stand out. Of course, it determines the mood with which your teacher is going to proceed to check and mark your work.

No one can undermine the importance of a good presentation. Here are some amazing tips that can help you make your assignment more attractive.

1. Convert To PDF

Professors have to deal with several assignments every day. This process can be mentally and physically exhausting for them.

In such circumstances, seeing badly formatted documents can make them more frustrated and may affect your grades.

This problem usually occurs when you share your files as a Word Document. Although Word is a commonly used format, it cannot be trusted to keep the document formatting in check.

Hence, it is always a better idea to share your assignments in PDF form. PDFs are not only used for assignments, you may also need to see sodapdf w9 form if your taxes as a foreign exchange student are due.

As you convert your assignment from word to pdf, it locks the formatting of the document. No matter how many times you share a PDF document, it will not lose its setting.

Hence, you can have the peace of mind that your formatting will stay the same on any operating system.

 2. Make Subheadings

The lengths of every assignment can vary on several factors, such as the instructions from your professor or the subject that you are covering.

Of course, every assignment can start to look cluttered after a few paragraphs in a row. The best way to give a break to the eyes of the reader is to create more subheadings.

Adding more subheadings to your assignments makes it easy to read and process. Your reader will be more comfortable reading and processing the knowledge conveyed. Creating subheadings can also give you mental peace and valid breaks during work.

In addition to subheadings, it is best to ensure that you use the right spacing in your document. Spacing also plays an important role in making your document visually appealing and easily readable. It only takes a few seconds to space your document.

3. Check For Errors  

An assignment filled with errors, especially from the start, can undermine all your hard work. Of course, you do not want that to happen. Therefore, it is important to take some time to review your assignment after you are done with writing.

The best way is to use a spell-checker to make your assignments error-free. After that, you can read your document out loud.

It is one of the best practices to figure out inconsistencies in the tone and flow of your assignment. Once you fix these issues, your assignment is good to go for submission.

4. Use In-Text Citations & References

Any college/ university assignment that includes words, research, and ideas of other writers must have citations.

When writing an assignment, you will naturally refer to other literary work and reading materials linked to your topic.

After all, thorough research is mandatory for crafting great assignments. So, while quoting someone else’s work in your assignment, you cannot forget to cite all used references.

To cite references, you will need to cite the information source so that your assignment doesn’t show plagiarism. The citations will also prove that you have thoroughly researched while writing your assignment.

 5. Proofread Before Submission

Once you have completed your assignment, you will want to submit your assignment at the earliest; however, you will always take some time to proofread and edit the assignment before the final submission.

Ideally, you will want to proofread your assignment at least three times before its final submission. The best way to do this is by reading out the assignment loudly to yourself.

You will notice the things you might have omitted during the writing process by hearing what you have written.

Meanwhile, you will also want to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It doesn’t matter how great your assignment is and how much effort you put into making it; it won’t leave a great impression if your teacher finds tons of mistakes in it.

Since you wouldn’t want your hard work to go to waste, you will need to make an effort to read your assignment, proofread it, and edit it if necessary before its final submission. 

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• 8 Tips to Make Assignments Look Professionally Aesthetic

• By myaproadm

A good design is critical for your assignments. As it can mean the difference between getting good marks and getting an excellent grade. Well-designed assignments can ensure that your work impresses your professors, stands out from the rest of the class, and shows the amount of effort you (or your group) put into this project. You’ll be astonished to know that good design holds the same importance for various assignment help service providers like My Assignments Pro when you search for My Assignment Help .

8 Tips to make your assignment aesthetically beautiful:

1. Adhere to the rules

Before submitting the tasks, students are always told to follow the university guidelines or the teacher’s suggestions. So, when preparing your projects for submission, make sure that you follow the requirements outlined in the policy; otherwise, this oversight could cost you a lot of money during inspections.

2. Less is more

Overly presented tasks are clunky, but they also give the impression that the assignment was prepared solely for writing. Though it is good to have thought let me include as much material as possible in my assignment to help me score better, but it is only regarded as perfect when the information is acceptable and relevant to the context.

3. Straightforward appearance

When it comes to designing assignments, don’t fall into the trap of over-decorating. Everything would appear a little cheesy and overly displayed, and the words themselves would be meaningless if they were not arranged properly. So, please keep it presentable and straightforward because simplicity is the key to getting good marks.

4. Select the appropriate typeface

The fonts you use for your assignment should be simple and easy to read. Teachers love them since they are formal in context and easy to understand while reading.

5. Make font colour and size readable

The wrong font size for your content might sometimes defeat the purpose of delivering it to the teacher. When writing, please don’t make it look too big or too little; instead, stick to the ones that come before the structural ethics. There’s no need to spruce up your typeface with flashy colours, as this could detract from the idea of doing a professional task.

6. Complete the alignment process

Remember that alignment is critical for your assignment because there is no purpose in achieving well in academics if the content is not presented in a logical order. As a result, you must guarantee that every sentence and paragraph in your assignment is aligned correctly.

7. Pay attention to punctuation

If the correct punctuation is not correctly inserted at the appropriate location, the entire meaning of the sentence may be altered, and you will be unable to communicate the right message to your audience through the content. So, to convey the correct meaning of your article, make sure you use punctuation in the appropriate places.

8. An excellent conclusion to each paragraph

There’s no use in guaranteeing a fantastic rhythm or sequence to your content if the last sentence of each paragraph doesn’t have an appropriate ending. If you don’t end your sections with the correct meaning, you might not be able to connect the two paragraphs, let alone the entire context.

Conclusion:  These pointers by My Assignments Pro should have convinced you of the necessity of assignment design and styling. If you’re having trouble making your assignment look aesthetically professional, these pointers will undoubtedly come in handy otherwise My Assignments Pro is 24*7 available online to help you. So, go ahead and make a search for My Assignment Help.

Also Read: Check Out the Expert’s Secrets for Writing a Perfect Assignment

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Study Mumbai

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How to make a word document look professional & attractive

September 16, 2019 by studymumbai Leave a Comment

Top design tips to make your word document more beautiful, attractive and professional.

Professionals spend a lot of time working with word documents, but its not just professionals who have to work with word, even students have to use word for their projects and assignments.

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Be it a business plan, MBA assignment, project, or even your resume, you need to know how to use the various design elements, in order to beautify your word document.

Even ICSE Class X students have to submit their computer project in a word document (you have to submit print outs of your project types in a word document). And you can easily wow the examiner by making a beautiful project in word.

So here you go, the various design related steps that you can incorporate in order to make your word document look better.

• Change the background colour of the document. It doesn’t have to be white, there is an option to change it.
• Have a border for document, you can have borders for each and every page of the document (you just have to set it once). The border doesn’t have to be a straight line; you can choose from various patterns

• Make use of Header and Footer. Whatever you enter here will appear on each and every page of the word document. The footer can have page number and the name of the student. The header can have the name of the project / subject name.
• Make sure you have a consistent font throughout the document. But for certain sections, paragraphs, you can use a contrasting font in order to make it stand out.
• Putting more space between paragraphs (double-space between paras) also improves readability. You can also get rid of unwanted indents.
• You can also shrink the Line Length, depending on what is the document all about. Magazines, books, and other professional publications usually have narrow line lengths, where it is not common for the text to stretch across the entire page. Widening the margins significantly may result in more pages, but it looks better and readers are more likely to go through the content of the document.

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How to Make Your Assignment Look Attractive and Clean? – 10 Best Creative Ways 

Want to make your assignment look attractive and clean ? Or facing difficulty in writing a fabulous assignment that can help you get knowledge and a perfect understanding of the topic? Or how to present an assignment creatively?  

In student life, everyone goes through a situation where there is a need to write assignments. Writing an Assignment and completing it in time is not a difficult task; anyone can do this. But to make an assignment look attractive and clean is a complicated thing to do because it is difficult to understand how to make an assignment look presentable.

Every student needs to make an assignment promising and perfect to impress teachers. These assignments greatly help the students to score well in exams .   

Quoted from Chanda Kochhar, former managing director, and chief executive officer of ICICI bank, she always learned to keep his mind open towards new ideas and take assignments as an opportunity to learn and prove herself.  

• 1 What is Lacking in Students While Making an Assignment?
• 2 Why Making an Assignment Presentable is Vital?
• 3.1 1. Introduce Yourself
• 3.2 2. An Engaging Introduction of the Topic
• 3.3 3. Understanding Your Topic
• 3.4 4. Writing the Best Information  
• 3.5 5. Use Proper Headings and Sub-Headings
• 3.6 6. Provide Authentic Content
• 3.7 7. Use Margin Lines
• 3.8 8. Draw Figures and Diagrams
• 3.9 9. Reread Your Topic
• 3.10 10. Ending Point
• 4 FAQ’s
• 5 Final Words

What is Lacking in Students While Making an Assignment?

Many students have a lot of knowledge about a precise topic, but they keep writing essays and stories without a proper plan. They cannot articulate it properly and put it in the right words in the right manner. It is not considered a satisfactory practice to start an assignment without a plan that is why you should know how to write an assignment and make your assignment look attractive and clean by using a proper way to convey and comprehend your topic with a good presentation .

You should write and present your assignment in a way that can grab the attention of a teacher. Assignment writing is mandatory, along with all the other curricular and non-curricular activities of students during their academic life.  

Why Making an Assignment Presentable is Vital?

The more the assignment is presentable, the more it is knowledge-giving.

To make your assignment look attractive and clean, you should write it in a unique and outstanding style. Also, the points should be misconception-free and written appropriately.

It is a considerable desire of students to acquire high grades to give a productive outcome. So, they have to create presentable and remarkable assignments to establish a good impression on their respected teachers.   

The research was conducted on the impact of writing assignments on student learning, and the investigations show that writing assignments improve student performance. It also suggests that this assignment writing enhances students’ performance on lower-order learning assessments or multiple-choice examinations.  

Moreover, A fixed deadline is certainly given to write and make your assignment look attractive and clean , which will also bring discipline to students’ lives. Several assignment-making ideas can be incorporated productively to make an outstanding assignment.  

Ways to Make Your Assignment Look Attractive and Clean

Here, I have described some significant aspects to help you make your assignment look attractive and clean . Incorporate the following tips on how to make your assignment creative, remarkable, and incredible.  

1. Introduce Yourself

The introductory page also has fair importance to make your assignment look attractive and clean . Give a proper introduction of yourself on the very first page.

It includes your name, Roll number, department name, semester, and all the other details about you.

This page should also contain who is submitting this assignment and to whom it is being submitted. Don’t forget to give a proper title of your topic.  

All these things are necessary to give an awesome look to your assignment. If your assignment is handwritten, draw something beautiful but formal at the side of the introductory page to make it look more attractive. Otherwise, you can use suitable graphics to design your assignment document.  

2. An Engaging Introduction of the Topic

An introduction should be appropriate according to your topic and good-looking enough to engage the readers and persuade them to read further.

You should define your topic briefly in the introduction so that readers know what you are going to talk about in your assignment. To make your assignment look attractive and clean and make the readers or your teachers take an interest in your writing, you have to provide a good introduction.  

3. Understanding Your Topic

The foremost and essential thing you need to know when looking for ideas on how to make your assignment look attractive and clean is to understand thoroughly what your topic is? Understand every point and detail to explain it and write about it.

Familiarize yourself with the content because you cannot write a fair assignment without knowing every aspect of your topic.

You have to understand your topic well. Do proper research and note down the key points. After completing your research, write about it with an appropriate plan in mind. Think of different ways to present your ideas effectively. This understanding will help you make an outstanding, attractive, and perfect assignment. 

4. Writing the Best Information  

Writing an assignment is the basic thing that is vital to make your assignment look attractive and clean . Use different resources to gather the information and make a strategy to move ahead.

Research shows that students who prepared detailed assignment structures and used different writing strategies could write and design their topics more successfully.   

When you have to make an assignment in handwritten form, you must focus on your handwriting. And the look should be engaging and presented beautifully. But if you are creating a soft copy, you need to choose proper standard fonts. You can use different assignment writing applications with several beautiful and formal fonts for making assignments. Interestingly format it and pick up the right words carefully.  

5. Use Proper Headings and Sub-Headings

Headings should be written in bold letters to attract the reader’s eyes at once. Use a lot of subheadings where ever needed. It will help in describing the main points of your topic. It also helps to make your assignment look attractive and clean .  

6. Provide Authentic Content

Understanding your question and topic satisfactorily is the main thing. You can never write an answer until you do not understand what is being asked in the question. The content you write in your assignment should be relevant and authentic. Give proper definitions and justifications in your assignments. Use appropriate examples to explain your concept but do not use irrelevant examples.  

According to Benjamin Franklin, an American writer, scientist, and inventor, you should either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Write your assignment by keeping readers’ points of view in your mind and explaining it most accurately. Also, provide a reference from where you have taken this content. Including authentic and proper references make your assignment look attractive and clean, more precise, and credible.  

7. Use Margin Lines

If you want to make your assignment look attractive and clean, don’t forget to add margin lines and proper marking of the pages. Number every page and always use margin lines to make your work look attractive and positively impact the reader. The more the assignment is attractive and looks easy to the eyes, the more effective and acceptable.  

Mark the ending of every topic or question with some edgy corner symbols or straight lines to demonstrate the ending point.

Also, you can use double quotes around main points or keywords or any quote you cite from someone. Without margin lines, your assignment looks messy and disorganized.  

8. Draw Figures and Diagrams

Therefore, present your ideas through the assignment and make them look catchy and attractive. This is a good academic practice that will undoubtedly help you score well.  

9. Reread Your Topic

Proofreading is good to make your assignment misconception-free and accurate. After completing your assignment, again read it once. It will make your assignment error-free. Also, check all the details that have covered all the aspects. Find out your mistakes and correct them before submitting the assignment to your teacher.  

You can ask your friends, classmates, or siblings to do this for you, read your assignment as an assignment checker, and give sincere feedback. When your assignment is accurate, you can conveniently score well in your academic career. Rereading and refreshing helps a lot to make your assignment look attractive and clean.

10. Ending Point

Conclusion lines or ending phrases are also the important factors that make your assignment look attractive and clean . You should write three to four clauses at the end of your assignment as a conclusion. This will sum up your whole idea and give a complete and comprehensive look at your assignment. Proper finishing is vital, so work on it to make your work worthy of reading.  

As every student desires to obtain remarkable grades, writing and well-presentable assignments are necessary. You can also follow all tips if you want to become a successful student .

FAQ’s

Here are some FAQs about how to make your assignment look attractive and clean.  

Q: How do you write a perfect assignment?  

Writing a perfect assignment needs your attention, understanding, and time. The foremost thing is knowing and gathering authentic content about your topic and then adding more creativity to your assignment. Choose the best fonts that look formal and beautiful. Use visuals, videos, and images to make your assignment look attractive and clean .  

Q: Why do teachers need to give assignments?  

Teachers give homework, assignments, and presentations for your good and benefit. Through these assignments, you get a better understanding of your subject. Your concepts will be cleared, and you can comprehend the topics better when you make assignments and put effort into gathering the best content.  

Q: What should your first step be when beginning a new assignment?  

The foremost step when initializing an assignment is to know what you have to do and what your topic is? If you don’t understand your topic thoroughly, you will never write a perfect assignment. Gather information from different books, guides, and online resources and choose the best content to add to your assignment.  

Q: How do I write an assignment for college?  

Writing assignments for college is the basic need of every student in their academic life. Understand your topic and explain it properly to make your assignment look attractive and clean . Give a brief history, a short introductory note, explanation, relevant examples, and at the end, a conclusion or sum up about the topic. Decorate your assignment decently and elegantly.  

Q: How do I research an assignment?  

Research is an important factor that makes your assignment incredible. Go through several books, articles, education websites, online resources, text guides, and other different sources to compile information about your topic. In this way, by utilizing different resources, you can research your topic better.  

Final Words

Making good assignments is vital for your good grades and competent performance at your college or university level. I hope that you get enough understanding about writing an assignment and will be able to make your assignment look attractive and clean. Be a brilliant student , and wish you the best of luck. 

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How-To Geek

6 features i'd love to see in microsoft word.

A few small additions would make a huge difference.

Quick Links

• An Automatic Quick Access Toolbar
• Removing (and Adding) Blank Pages
• Instant Saving
• More Excel-Type Function User-Friendliness in Tables
• Add Attachments to Mail Merge
• Better Image Integration

With its many features to support you when creating and editing documents, Microsoft Word is a powerful word processor. However, as a daily user of the desktop version of the software, there are some features that I've hoped would be added for many years—but my wishes are yet to be granted.

1. An Automatic Quick Access Toolbar

Microsoft's Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is a great way of adding those features and functions that you use frequently to your toolbar at the top of your Microsoft Word window. For example, to speed up my work as a proofreader, I created macros and added these two buttons to my QAT to automatically make certain formatting changes every time I open up a Word document created by somebody else.

You can also quickly access most of Word's functions through the search box at the top of the window.

While these are both certainly useful ways to make things happen without having to trawl through Word's many menus, they both come with their problems.

Using the QAT is great if, like me, you only have a couple of icons to choose from, but if there are lots of things you do on a regular basis on Microsoft Word, your QAT can quickly become congested and confusing. That ultimately slowing you down as you try to remember which icon is the one you need to click. Equally frustratingly, the QAT isn't available on Microsoft Word for the web.

The search bar is only useful if you know the best keywords to type to find the feature you're looking for, and the Recently Used Actions and Suggested Actions that pop up when you click the search bar don't seem to represent reality.

To rectify this issue and speed up your work, Microsoft Word should have an extra tab on the ribbon, called Frequently Used Actions, that syncs between both the paid desktop app and its web-based counterpart. This alternative to the QAT would automatically log the tools you use more often in Microsoft Word, and make them available automatically without you having to manually add them to a toolbar, search for the function, or learn the keyboard shortcut.

2. Removing (and Adding) Blank Pages

There are various reasons for there being a blank page in a Word document, ranging from empty paragraph markers to hidden page or section breaks. You can use the Show/Hide icon (¶) to see if there are empty paragraph markers, and this will certainly go some way to helping you identify the source of the blank page.

The most problematic cause of a blank page for me, however, has been Microsoft Word insisting on there being a paragraph marker after a table.

As you can see in the screenshot above, after creating my table, clicking ¶ reveals that a new page has been created, even though this is the end of my document and I don't want a new page. As a result, to remove the extra page, I would have to change my font or line and paragraph spacing options, or adjust the page borders. And you can tell your printer not to print page 2 of your document, but it shouldn't be necessary to have to remember to do this.

The ideal solution to this issue would be for Microsoft to insert a Remove Blank Page option in the Layout tab on the ribbon.

You might also find situations where it would be useful to add a blank page to your document. While you can do this by adding a page break, because they're invisible unless you click "¶", sometimes it's easy to forget that they're there. So, as well as adding the option to remove the blank page, Microsoft should also consider having an Add Blank Page icon, too.

3. Instant Saving

Microsoft's AutoSave is a really handy safety net, as it automatically saves your work to your OneDrive . This means that you don't have to press Ctrl+S before closing your Word document, and if your computer suddenly shows you the blue screen of death , you can be confident that your work is sitting in the cloud, ready for you to continue once your PC has recovered.

But there's a catch. If you haven't initially saved your document, it won't be uploaded to your OneDrive, as Word will regard your document as a draft until you give it a name and save it to a folder.

As you can see in this example, I haven't given the document a name, so AutoSave is turned off, even though I have started to add text. If my computer were to require a spontaneous update, I'd lose this work.

As a workaround to this issue, it would be really handy if new Word documents were to save automatically as soon as they're created, even if named according to the first three or four words you type onto the page. What's more, with today's AI age, it would be even more useful if Word could scan your document, give it an appropriate name, and save it to a folder in your OneDrive where other similar documents have already been uploaded. But maybe that's pie-in-the-sky territory.

4. More Excel-Type Function User-Friendliness in Tables

You can use around 20 basic calculation formulas in tables on Microsoft Word , including =SUM, =AVERAGE, =COUNT, and =ROUND. But there's still a long way for Microsoft to go in this area.

First off, when you launch the Formula window after creating your table, there's no way for you to know which functions you can and cannot use. Unlike in Microsoft Excel, which offers formula suggestions when you start to type them into a cell, a very basic dialog box appears on Word, ultimately limiting what is actually a potentially really useful feature.

What's more, because there are no cell references on Word's tables, you have to type ABOVE , BELOW , LEFT , and RIGHT , which just seems cumbersome and less reliable.

And there's another issue (and it's a big one). If you change any of the values in the table, the calculations won't update automatically. Instead, you have to press Ctrl+A (to select all the functions) and F9, and it's very easy to forget to do this.

I'd really like to see Microsoft bring Word and Excel closer in this regard. When you create a table, the cells should be headed with column letters and row numbers, you should be given more of a clue which formulas you can use (and you should be able to use more), the formula syntax should be identical to what you'd type in Excel, and the formulas should update automatically if the data they rely on changes.

5. Add Attachments to Mail Merge

Word's Mail Merge tool is great for distributing the same copy of a document or email to many people but with certain elements personalized for each recipient, such as their name at the top. Let's say you want to send a personalized wedding invitation email to 100 friends and family, and you want to attach the itinerary to your email. While you can, indeed, send that personalized invitation through Word's Mail Merge, there are no easy ways to attach your itinerary. Instead, you'd have to install an add-in—which can work intermittently or pose a security risk—or create a complex macro—which takes a great deal of time to learn how to do.

I guess a lot of people would benefit greatly from the simple addition of an Add Attachment button to the Mail Merge dialog box in Microsoft Word—I know it'd make me very happy!

6. Better Image Integration

When you add images to a Word document , they can be frustrating to position and control, and often lead to layout changes in your work. Sometimes, it's difficult to know which option to choose when you right-click the image and select "Wrap Text," and selecting the wrong one can lead to the text behaving erratically around the image.

Also, if you add a large image to your document, this can significantly slow down its processing speed.

As an experienced Word user, I can adjust the settings and, ultimately, find ways to have the image behave how I want it to, but it shouldn't be that difficult. Things would be so much easier if, when you insert an image, a dialog box appeared before you see the image appear in your document, giving you options such as where and how you want the image to be placed among your words.

Ultimately, I'm a big fan of Microsoft Word and use it daily without any issues. But having these few extra features added would make my life a lot easier.

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Blog Marketing How to Make a Poster in 10 Steps (2024 Poster Design Guide + Templates)

How to Make a Poster in 10 Steps (2024 Poster Design Guide + Templates)

Written by: Sara McGuire Jan 21, 2024

Posters are one of the oldest, most tried-and-true types of marketing collateral. Posters are an effective way to draw attention to your sales, events, fundraisers and more.

While there is no one right way to make a poster , there are still poster design best practices that you should follow.

So we decided to take it upon ourselves to write the ultimate, most in-depth poster design guide out there. If you want to learn how to design a poster from scratch (or with our professionally designed poster templates ), you’re in the right place.

These poster design tips can be applied to virtually any poster you design. So let’s get into it!

How to design a poster from scratch

Creating a poster from scratch can be a fun and enriching experience. Whether you’re crafting a school project to impress your teacher, using one to promote an event or simply presenting information in an engaging way, posters offer a unique opportunity to express yourself visually and share your message effectively.

This step-by-step guide will equip you with the tools and techniques to make your own compelling poster:

• Identify the goal of your poster
• Consider your target audience
• Decide where to share your poster
• Select a professional poster template
• Pick a relevant or branded color scheme 
• Include a clear call to action
• Use fonts to create a hierarchy of information
• Use icons to visualize concepts and grab attention 
• Add high-quality images & stock photos
• Download & export in the right format

How to design posters for different occasions

1. identify the goal of your poster.

The most important step in the poster creation process is to understand why you are creating this type of promotional material in the first place.

Is it because of advertising purposes for a new product? To grab the audience’s attention about a concert in the area? To highlight important details about a campaign? Or even just because there’s a sale coming up? All of these are goals that some engaging poster templates can help you achieve. 

If you think about your main goals from the beginning, you can use those goals to guide your choices like a professional designer would.

For example, if the goal of your poster is to invite your community to a fundraising event , then your poster should be designed strategically to help you achieve this goal. A common rule for written communication is that simplicity wins.

Take a look at another fundraising event poster :

Just so you know, some of our poster templates are free to use and some require a small monthly fee. Sign-up is always free, as is access to Venngage’s online drag-and-drop editor.

Now, if you’re looking for information posters for your fundraising event, here’s another example you can keep in mind:

CUSTOMIZE THIS POSTER TEMPLATE

Start with a goal and plan your custom poster around it. 

2. Consider your target audience 

Next, you should consider who you are trying to reach with your poster. Answering this question will probably remind you of all the important details you should highlight while you make your poster.

For example, say you’re advertising an event for women’s rights like below:

Now compare it to this other design below:

The goal and audience on each of these templates are different and both designs will appeal to distinct groups of people. Make sure you have decided exactly who you want to appeal to, before jumping into your online poster creator tool and starting your creation process.

A perk of these eye-catching posters is that we can see inclusive visuals, maximalist elements and bold shapes — which happen to be some of this year’s biggest graphic design trends .

Also, remember that you can make multiple posters that cater to different customer personas . You don’t have to use one for every type of customer! 

3. Decide where you want to share your poster

The final thing you should determine to save time — before designing your poster — is where it will be shared. 

Would you like to hang it up on a wall? Or just share it with your followers on social media so they can leave comments and send it to other friends? 

It’s important to decide where you want your poster to be seen before you start working on your online poster maker. This is because, as you will see below, optimizing a poster properly for print is slightly different than for Twitter or Facebook. 

Optimize your poster for print 

You probably have an idea of where you’re going to share your poster. Where you decide to pin it up can help you make a few design decisions. 

If you’re planning on printing out your poster, there are some basic guidelines you should keep in mind.

Visualize where you will pin up your poster

If it’s going on a wall with a bunch of other movie posters though , print your poster in a larger size so it will stand out:

But if it’s going on a relatively bare wall, print it in a smaller size and pin up a bunch of them to then create posters with a larger footprint like the minimalist poster templates below:

If you’re looking for more ideas to present your findings effectively, search through our selection of scientific poster templates .

Select a standard paper size

Unless you want to create a big poster background, you probably don’t want to spend money on getting it printed. You can print it yourself by simply designing your custom poster to fit the standard ISO A1-A5 printer paper.

With Venngage you can magically resize any of our poster templates into Letter, A3, A4, A5 and any custom dimensions with a few clicks. First, click on the page size tab on the top left and then select what size you would like: 

The page resize option will also reformat your poster content to fit the new size you select — if you want it to. This simple feature will save you a TON of time in the long run, so be sure to try it out. 

You’re more than welcome to manually resize your poster the old-fashioned way, by updating the page size: 

You can also set the size of your poster background in Pixels, Inches, or Centimeters as well. 

That said, for most of the posters that you’re going to print out, it’s best to use the preset sizes. This will ensure that your printer can actually print out a beautiful poster.

above, there’s now a white border added to your design. This is — you guessed it — the bleed marks! 

Optimize your poster for social media.

There are fewer restraints when designing a poster for web than for print. This is a great opportunity to do something really fun with your design. Still, there are some guidelines you should follow.  

If you want your poster to look really good on social media, size it for the specific platform you’re promoting it on . You may want to make a couple of different versions of your poster for different platforms.

Remember, a square or portrait orientation looks best for mobile viewing. People are used to scrolling up and down on mobile, rather than side to side.

These are the ideal dimensions for each of the big social media platforms:

• Facebook : 1200 x 630 pixels
• X ( Twitter) : 1200 x 675 pixels for landscape images, 900 x 900 pixels for square images and 506 x 253 pixels for 2:1 aspect ratio images.
• Instagram : 1080px by 1080px at a 1:1 aspect ratio. For landscape posts, use an image that is 1080px by 566px, with an aspect ratio of 1.91:1.
• Pinterest : You have more wiggle room here for length, but try to use a ratio of 2:3 to 1:3.5. 

If you’re creating an advertisement poster for Twitter or Facebook, banners generally fit better on their newsfeeds. In that case, landscape orientation is fine.

Or if you’re looking for awareness campaign poster ideas to share on a Pinterest board:

4. Start with a professional poster template 

You don’t need to hire professional designers to create powerful poster backgrounds. Designing your own poster might sound intimidating but with Venngage’s free poster maker , you can make an engaging poster online — for business, virtual events, scientific facts, and much more.

A poster template will give you a foundation to create your own poster stand, your own design.

Start by picking a template that will help communicate the goal of your poster. Look for templates that reflect your poster’s theme or have the right layout you’re looking for. 

Here are some things to keep in mind when picking a poster template :

• Look for a poster template with a layout that fits your vision and goals (ex. header placement, image placeholders, icons and more).
• Pick a poster sample with the right dimensions for where you will be sharing your poster (ex. on a wall, on Facebook, in an email marketing campaign, etc).
• Remember that you can always  customize your templates  if there are aspects of the design that you don’t like.

For example, if you want to create a poster for your job fair, you would want to focus on the location, date, and jobs available:

However, if you’re creating information posters to raise knowledge and awareness about an important holiday or event:

If you’re creating an advertisement poster to promote a sale, the discount and date are probably should be the most eye-catching parts of your poster:

As you can see, these are all great poster templates, but each example is designed to help you achieve a unique goal. So just make sure you are picking a template that fits your goal and you will save a ton of time. 

Now if you want to learn how to create an event poster, business poster, sales poster and more, jump to the last section. There you will find a more in-depth guide on creating a killer poster. 

5. Pick a relevant or branded color scheme 

One of the first things that someone will probably notice about your poster is the color scheme.

In most cases, the appropriate color scheme will be obvious. So try not to overthink it! 

For example, if you’re creating a poster for a winter event, then a color scheme of warm green, red, and white will evoke the feeling of the holidays.

If your company has strict brand guidelines you need to follow, then you can incorporate your brand colors into your custom posters.

Now if you want to use your brand colors on any of our poster templates, just click the My Brand Kit tab on the left side of the screen: 

Then click one of your branded colors to add them to any poster template:

Click the palette again to change where the branded colors are used:

With a few clicks, you can create a ton of variations of your poster, like so: 

However, if you’re still struggling to come up with a relevant color scheme, take a look at the meanings and emotions of each color. 

The color blue is usually associated with wisdom, trust, and loyalty. Use this color palette on a business, event, or marketing poster to make it feel very professional: 

Green is associated with energy, the environment, and tranquility. It would make sense to use a green color combination on a nonprofit or fundraising poster, like below:

Red is associated with strength, courage, and joy. It also is super eye-catching, which you can see in the minimalist but stunning poster below:

As you can see, color theory should help you pick the right color palette in no time. Now if you’re not sure where to start when it comes to pairing colors, a color scheme generator tool like Coolors can be helpful.

6. Include a clear call-to-action

Once you have someone’s attention, you need to make it very clear what their next steps are to help. This is commonly known as a Call-To-Action (CTA). 

Every poster, no matter the topic or type, should have a CTA. Otherwise, what is the point of creating a poster in the first place?

In this marketing poster template, the CTA is the “ Register Online ” at the bottom:

The designer made sure this CTA would stand out from the rest of the poster by highlighting it in blue and using a unique font.

Additionally, they made the CTA very simple to follow. You don’t want to make your CTA a chore, especially if your poster wants them to visit a website.

The same can be said about this fitness poster template:

But in this example, the creator of this poster made the CTA stand out even more!

As you can see these CTAs are both near the bottom of the poster. This is on purpose and allows the reader to get more information before taking action:

Can you imagine if the first thing you read on a poster was CTA? It would be very confusing and probably make you ignore the rest of the poster.

Not all CTAs require the reader to visit a website, call a business or make a purchase immediately.

That action may be as simple as telling their friends about what they learned on the poster. Or about when a garage sale happens to be: 

The call to action on this poster is actually the entire black section of the poster. The top section informs the reader and the bottom helps them take an action. 

In this case, the action is visiting the garage sale, but it still is a CTA. Without it, no one would know what this poster was trying to get them to do. 

7. Use fonts to create a hierarchy of information

What information you choose to include on your poster will depend on the goal of your poster. 

But if you’re creating a fairly standard poster, it’s best practice to follow a hierarchy of information.

For example, if you are creating an event poster the information on your eye-catching posters should be read in this order:

• The name of your event.
• The date and time of your event.
• A short description of the event or a catchy tagline.
• The location of your event (if you choose to include it).
• A simple call to action like a website, social media page or contact number.
• The name of your company, department, organization, etc.

As you can see in this event poster design, the designer used a handful of different fonts to organize the information: 

The title of the event obviously uses the largest font, because it will hopefully catch someone’s attention. It also will give the reader context for the other information on the poster. 

But if they aren’t interested in learning more, they can quickly move on with their day after reading the title. 

If they are interested in the event, they can move on to the next piece of information, the date.

The designer used a bright yellow to catch your eye directly after reading the title of the event. If they would have used a simple white, the information would have been easily overlooked. 

The tagline of the event is italicized below the title, giving the reader a little more context about the event. Again, if this sounds interesting to the reader, they can move on to the next piece of information, and so on.  

This process will help eliminate people who don’t really need to see the CTA at the end of your poster. 

And finally, after moving through all the information, the CTA at the bottom uses another bold font and color so that people will not miss it. 

Can you imagine how hard it would be to navigate this poster if they would have used the same font throughout? It would look like a term paper that no one wants to read.

Now if you’re struggling to decide what the hierarchy of your poster should look like, think about the most important info you want the reader to walk away with.

In this example, the title of the event, the location and the CTA seem to be the most important.

Additionally, the font color used in this design contrasts exceptionally well with the poster background color. If you choose a font that doesn’t contrast, it will be very difficult to read your poster. 

As you can see below, a good rule of thumb is to use a light font color on a dark background:

Or a dark font on a light background:    

Even if you use a single font on your poster, you can quickly create a hierarchy of information just by changing the font’s color, size or weight. So again, don’t overthink it!

8. Use icons to visualize concepts and grab attention

Icons are symbols used in design to represent concepts. Icons are the perfect way to enhance your custom posters. You can use icons to embellish points and, in certain cases, replace text. 

They’re also great for illustrating ideas quickly. Or you could make icons the main focal point of your design, like the template below:

Keep these best practices in mind when using icons in your poster design:

• Pick icons with a consistent style (line thickness, flat or illustrated, line art or filled).
• Use icons sparingly and allow for plenty of whitespaces to let your design breathe.
• Add a simple border or background shape to your icons.
• If you do replace the text with icons, make sure that the meaning is very obvious.

Let’s take a look at some of those best practices in action, starting with keeping your icons consistent.

As you probably know, there are a few different kinds of icons that you can use. Some are flat, and can be changed to match the color of your poster very easily: 

While others are illustrated, and the colors can’t be changed:

Whatever icons you choose to use while designing a poster, just make sure the styles are consistent, like in the examples above. 

So if you use a flat icon in one section, use flat icons throughout your poster and vice versa.

Next, let’s talk about using whitespace correctly when it comes to icons. If you’re not aware, whitespace is the open space around a design element like a block of text, a title or an icon:

Without it, your poster design will feel exactly cramped and unprofessional. It will also make your poster very hard to read or navigate. Check out how odd the poster below looks without adequate whitespace:

It looks like a mess, so be sure to take the time to use whitespace throughout your poster! 

One very easy way that you can create this whitespace around your icons is by using a background or border shape. Each icon in the template below uses a background shape:

Using background shapes in this way will not only give your icons some room to breathe, but it will also make them a lot more eye-catching. Without the border shapes in the example above, the icons would have just faded into the background. 

Plus, if you’re using illustrated icons it will make the design feel much more consistent across the poster:

And the finally best practice, be sure that if you replace text with an icon, the reader will actually understand it. The poster example below illustrates this tactic well in the contact section:

Readers are going to be able to decipher those icons because they are used a lot in the real world already. Others might not be so easy to understand, so you might have to add a label or title to them. Like below:

With Venngage, you can quickly swap any icon on your poster or one of our customizable poster templates , with just a few clicks as well. First, select on any icon on your poster and then click the Replace button:

Then just search for the icon that you want, and click on it to replace: 

It’s really that simple and can help you turn any template into your own unique graphic in no time. 

9. Use high-quality images & stock photos

If you have been paying attention to the templates and examples in this article you may have noticed that they use a lot of premium images.

Venngage’s free poster maker tool offers free and premium images, icons and graphs to help you edit poster designs with ease — no prior design skills needed. Here are some examples of stock images in the background: 

While others make it one of the main focal points of the poster:

But all of them use very high-quality images, no matter the type of poster.

If you plan to print out the poster or enlarge it, using high-quality photos is important. The slight blurriness or pixelation will quickly become a nightmare. 

It doesn’t matter if you are using a stock photo or one that you took, all of them should be very crisp and clear. Sometimes it’s better to use a professional stock photo in place of a blurry personal photo as well.

Plus, Venngage’s free poster maker tool is integrated with Pixabay and Pexels to elevate your design. Access stunning, professional photography with just one click.

Just head over to the left sidebar and click the Photos tab to bring up the search bar: 

Once you find the perfect stock photo just click the photo to add it to your poster.

Additionally, like with icons, you can swap any photo on your poster using the Replace button:

After you select Replace , you can search for any stock photo in our library and insert it into the poster with one click:

Now if you don’t want to use any of our stock photos, you can upload your own images by dragging it on the screen or by selecting Image Upload in the left sidebar:

As you can see, adding your own photos to your poster is very easy, just make sure you pick the right ones. 

10. Download & export your poster in the optimal format

After you have finished your poster, it’s time to share it with the world. On Venngage you can quickly download your poster by clicking the Download button on the right side of your screen:

Then select what type of file you would like your poster downloaded as:

Downloading your poster as a PNG should be fine for emails or social media. 

But if you want to print out your poster, download it as a PNG HD. This will make sure your poster is crisp and perfect once it gets back from the printer! 

Phew, that was a lot of info! Need a quick recap or want to share this information with your team? We have you covered with this video : 

All of the advice we outlined above can be used on almost any poster. But in this final section, we are going to get a little more specific.

Below are some of the most popular types of posters that you can create. 

But instead of waxing poetically on each type of poster, we are going to outline a simple checklist for each type of poster! 

So let’s get into it! 

How to make an infographic poster

• Choose a powerful topic you’d like to inform about.
• Do your research and gather relevant facts.
• Select an outstanding template that’ll help you grab attention.
• Add icons and graphs. Data visualization is key in an infographic poster.
• Create a content hierarchy and highlight the most interesting insights.
• Add your logo and company’s branding.
• Download in multiple formats and share.

Related: What Is an Infographic Poster and How To Make One?

How to make an event poster

• Start with an interesting background image or color.
• Use a large and bold font for your event title.  
• Add some embellishments to the title to make it pop.
• Add the date, location and time of the event. 
• Include a simple call to action.
• Describe your event or why people should attend.
• Make sure you add your logo and brand colors.

Related: 10 Event Poster Design Ideas [+ Free Templates]

How to make a marketing poster

• Arrange the 4 P’s of your strategy: your product, price, promotion and place.
• Choose a design that will mark your audience and look good in your selected place.
• Make your campaign details the focus of the poster.
• Add high-quality images of your product or service.
• Include a relevant call to action.
• Incorporate your branding.

CCUSTOMIZE THIS POSTER TEMPLATE

If you want to dig deeper into the steps to create a marketing poster and find campaign poster ideas, read this article: How to Design a Marketing Poster (10+ Templates Included).

How to make a sales poster

• Start with a simple background color or texture.
• Make the savings or discount the main focal point. 
• Show where or what store the sale is taking place.
• List exactly what products are on sale or discounted. 
• Add the start and end date or time of the sale. 
• Add some contact information or a website 
• Include your branding or logo. 

How to make an HR poster

Summarize important information, helpful resources, processes or events information.

• Define the department you’re referring to.
• Include only the key information.
• Choose the best layout to showcase your announcement.
• Customize a brand-aligned design.
• Optimize your poster for distribution.

Related: 17 Essential Human Resources Poster Templates (Updated) .

How to make a conference poster

• Start with an interesting background texture or color.
• Use a large, eye-catching font for the conference title. 
• Outline the speakers, events, or special guests.
• Add the time and date of the conference.
• Add the location(s) of the conference. 
• Include a CTA for tickets or to sign up.
• Describe why people should attend this conference.
• Add the logo or branding of the conference organizer.  

How to make a medical poster

• Select your health awareness topic or medical information theme.
• Write a catching title with bold fonts.
• Highlight important data, stats and recommendations.
• Add images and icons to ease retention.
• Invite your audience to a website or to access more resources.

Related: 15 Medical Poster Templates for Patient Education .

How to make a real-estate poster

• Include a few high-quality pictures of the house or listing. 
• Add an eye-catching “For Sale” or “For Rent” header.
• List the purchase price or estimated rent.
• Add the address of the house or listing. 
• List a few of the most interesting features of the house or listing.   
• Elaborate on the listing, location, or real estate agency.  
• Add a simple call to action.
• Include the contact information for the real estate agent.
• Add the logo or branding of the real estate company.

Hopefully, these simple checklists will help you create a poster in no time! 

If you want to learn more about designing these types of custom posters , start with these articles:

• 20+ Attention-Grabbing Event Poster Templates
• 55+ Creative Poster Ideas, Templates & Design Tips
• 17 Essential Human Resources Poster Templates
• 10+ Research Poster Templates to Share Information Professionally

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Mac keyboard shortcuts

By pressing certain key combinations, you can do things that normally need a mouse, trackpad, or other input device.

Using keyboard shortcuts

Common shorcuts like cut, copy, paste

Sleep, log out, and shut down shortcuts

Finder and system shortcuts, document shortcuts, accessibility shortcuts, other shortcuts.

To use a keyboard shortcut, press and hold one or more modifier keys and then press the last key of the shortcut. For example, to use Command-C (copy), press and hold the Command key, then the C key, then release both keys. Mac menus and keyboards often use symbols for certain keys , including modifier keys:

Command (or Cmd) ⌘

Option (or Alt) ⌥

Control (or Ctrl) ⌃

Caps Lock ⇪

On keyboards made for Windows PCs, use the Alt key instead of Option, and the Ctrl key or Windows logo key instead of Command.

Cut, copy, paste, and other common shortcuts

Command-X : Cut the selected item and copy it to the Clipboard.

Command-C : Copy the selected item to the Clipboard. This also works for files in the Finder.

Command-V : Paste the contents of the Clipboard into the current document or app. This also works for files in the Finder.

Command-Z : Undo the previous command. You can then press Shift-Command-Z to Redo, reversing the undo command. In some apps, you can undo and redo multiple commands.

Command-A : Select All items.

Command-F : Find items in a document or open a Find window.

Command-G : Find Again: Find the next occurrence of the item previously found. To find the previous occurrence, press Shift-Command-G.

Command-H : Hide the windows of the front app. To view the front app but hide all other apps, press Option-Command-H.

Command-M : Minimize the front window to the Dock. To minimize all windows of the front app, press Option-Command-M.

Command-O: Open the selected item, or open a dialog to select a file to open.

Command-P : Print the current document.

Command-S : Save the current document.

Command-T : Open a new tab.

Command-W : Close the front window. To close all windows of the app, press Option-Command-W.

Option-Command-Esc : Force quit an app.

Command–Space bar : Show or hide the Spotlight search field. To perform a Spotlight search from a Finder window, press Command–Option–Space bar. (If you use multiple input sources to type in different languages, these shortcuts change input sources instead of showing Spotlight. Learn how to change a conflicting keyboard shortcut .)

Control–Command–Space bar : Show the Character Viewer, from which you can choose emoji and other symbols .

Control-Command-F : Use the app in full screen, if supported by the app.

Space bar : Use Quick Look to preview the selected item.

Command-Tab : Switch to the next most recently used app among your open apps.

Command–Grave accent (`): Switch between the windows of the app you're using. (The character on the second key varies by keyboard. It's generally the key above the Tab key and to the left of the number 1.)

Shift-Command-5 : In macOS Mojave or later , take a screenshot or make a screen recording. Or use Shift-Command-3 or Shift-Command-4 for screenshots. Learn more about screenshots .

Shift-Command-N: Create a new folder in the Finder.

Command-Comma (,) : Open preferences for the front app.

You might need to press and hold some of these shortcuts for slightly longer than other shortcuts. This helps you to avoid using them unintentionally.

Power button : Press to turn on your Mac or wake it from sleep. Press and hold for 1.5 seconds to put your Mac to sleep.* Continue holding to force your Mac to turn off.

Control–Command–Power button :* Force your Mac to restart, without prompting to save any open and unsaved documents.

Control-Command-Q : Immediately lock your screen.

Shift-Command-Q : Log out of your macOS user account. You will be asked to confirm. To log out immediately without confirming, press Option-Shift-Command-Q.

* Does not apply to the Touch ID sensor .

Command-D : Duplicate the selected files.

Command-E : Eject the selected disk or volume.

Command-F : Start a Spotlight search in the Finder window.

Command-I : Show the Get Info window for a selected file.

Command-R : (1) When an alias is selected in the Finder: show the original file for the selected alias. (2) In some apps, such as Calendar or Safari, refresh or reload the page. (3) In Software Update, check for software updates again.

Shift-Command-C : Open the Computer window.

Shift-Command-D : Open the desktop folder.

Shift-Command-F : Open the Recents window, showing all of the files you viewed or changed recently.

Shift-Command-G : Open a Go to Folder window.

Shift-Command-H : Open the Home folder of the current macOS user account.

Shift-Command-I : Open iCloud Drive.

Shift-Command-K : Open the Network window.

Option-Command-L : Open the Downloads folder.

Shift-Command-N: Create a new folder.

Shift-Command-O : Open the Documents folder.

Shift-Command-P : Show or hide the Preview pane in Finder windows.

Shift-Command-R : Open the AirDrop window.

Shift-Command-T : Show or hide the tab bar in Finder windows.

Control-Shift-Command-T : Add selected Finder item to the Dock (OS X Mavericks or later)

Shift-Command-U : Open the Utilities folder.

Option-Command-D : Show or hide the Dock.

Control-Command-T : Add the selected item to the sidebar (OS X Mavericks or later).

Option-Command-P : Hide or show the path bar in Finder windows.

Option-Command-S : Hide or show the Sidebar in Finder windows.

Command–Slash (/) : Hide or show the status bar in Finder windows.

Command-J : Show View Options.

Command-K : Open the Connect to Server window.

Control-Command-A : Make an alias of the selected item.

Command-N : Open a new Finder window.

Option-Command-N : Create a new Smart Folder.

Command-T : Show or hide the tab bar when a single tab is open in the current Finder window.

Option-Command-T : Show or hide the toolbar when a single tab is open in the current Finder window.

Option-Command-V : Move the files in the Clipboard from their original location to the current location.

Command-Y : Use Quick Look to preview the selected files.

Option-Command-Y : View a Quick Look slideshow of the selected files.

Command-1 : View the items in the Finder window as icons.

Command-2 : View the items in a Finder window as a list.

Command-3 : View the items in a Finder window in columns.

Command-4 : View the items in a Finder window in a gallery.

Command–Left Bracket ([) : Go to the previous folder.

Command–Right Bracket (]) : Go to the next folder.

Command–Up Arrow : Open the folder that contains the current folder.

Command–Control–Up Arrow : Open the folder that contains the current folder in a new window.

Command–Down Arrow : Open the selected item.

Right Arrow : Open the selected folder. This works only when in list view.

Left Arrow : Close the selected folder. This works only when in list view.

Command-Delete : Move the selected item to the Trash.

Shift-Command-Delete : Empty the Trash.

Option-Shift-Command-Delete : Empty the Trash without confirmation dialog.

Command–Brightness Down : Turn video mirroring on or off when your Mac is connected to more than one display.

Option–Brightness Up : Open Displays preferences. This works with either Brightness key.

Control–Brightness Up or Control–Brightness Down : Change the brightness of your external display, if supported by your display.

Option–Shift–Brightness Up or Option–Shift–Brightness Down : Adjust the display brightness in smaller steps. Add the Control key to this shortcut to make the adjustment on your external display, if supported by your display.

Option–Mission Control : Open Mission Control preferences.

Command–Mission Control : Show the desktop.

Control–Down Arrow : Show all windows of the front app.

Option–Volume Up : Open Sound preferences. This works with any of the volume keys.

Option–Shift–Volume Up or Option–Shift–Volume Down : Adjust the sound volume in smaller steps.

Option–Keyboard Brightness Up : Open Keyboard preferences. This works with either Keyboard Brightness key.

Option–Shift–Keyboard Brightness Up or Option–Shift–Keyboard Brightness Down : Adjust the keyboard brightness in smaller steps.

Option key while double-clicking : Open the item in a separate window, then close the original window.

Command key while double-clicking : Open a folder in a separate tab or window.

Command key while dragging to another volume : Move the dragged item to the other volume, instead of copying it.

Option key while dragging : Copy the dragged item. The pointer changes while you drag the item.

Option-Command while dragging : Make an alias of the dragged item. The pointer changes while you drag the item.

Option-click a disclosure triangle : Open all folders within the selected folder. This works only when in list view.

Command-click a window title : See the folders that contain the current folder.

Learn how to use Command or Shift to select multiple items in the Finder .

Click the Go menu in the Finder menu bar to see shortcuts for opening many commonly used folders, such as Applications, Documents, Downloads, Utilities, and iCloud Drive.

The behavior of these shortcuts may vary with the app you're using.

Command-B : Boldface the selected text, or turn boldfacing on or off.

Command-I : Italicize the selected text, or turn italics on or off.

Command-K : Add a web link.

Command-U : Underline the selected text, or turn underlining on or off.

Command-T : Show or hide the Fonts window.

Command-D : Select the Desktop folder from within an Open dialog or Save dialog.

Control-Command-D : Show or hide the definition of the selected word.

Shift-Command-Colon (:) : Display the Spelling and Grammar window.

Command-Semicolon (;) : Find misspelled words in the document.

Option-Delete : Delete the word to the left of the insertion point.

Control-H : Delete the character to the left of the insertion point. Or use Delete.

Control-D : Delete the character to the right of the insertion point. Or use Fn-Delete.

Fn-Delete : Forward delete on keyboards that don't have a Forward Delete key. Or use Control-D.

Control-K : Delete the text between the insertion point and the end of the line or paragraph.

Fn–Up Arrow : Page Up: Scroll up one page.

Fn–Down Arrow : Page Down: Scroll down one page.

Fn–Left Arrow: Home: Scroll to the beginning of a document.

Fn–Right Arrow : End: Scroll to the end of a document.

Command–Up Arrow : Move the insertion point to the beginning of the document.

Command–Down Arrow : Move the insertion point to the end of the document.

Command–Left Arrow : Move the insertion point to the beginning of the current line.

Command–Right Arrow : Move the insertion point to the end of the current line.

Option–Left Arrow : Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word.

Option–Right Arrow : Move the insertion point to the end of the next word.

Shift–Command–Up Arrow : Select the text between the insertion point and the beginning of the document.

Shift–Command–Down Arrow : Select the text between the insertion point and the end of the document.

Shift–Command–Left Arrow : Select the text between the insertion point and the beginning of the current line.

Shift–Command–Right Arrow : Select the text between the insertion point and the end of the current line.

Shift–Up Arrow : Extend text selection to the nearest character at the same horizontal location on the line above.

Shift–Down Arrow : Extend text selection to the nearest character at the same horizontal location on the line below.

Shift–Left Arrow : Extend text selection one character to the left.

Shift–Right Arrow : Extend text selection one character to the right.

Option–Shift–Up Arrow : Extend text selection to the beginning of the current paragraph, then to the beginning of the following paragraph if pressed again.

Option–Shift–Down Arrow : Extend text selection to the end of the current paragraph, then to the end of the following paragraph if pressed again.

Option–Shift–Left Arrow : Extend text selection to the beginning of the current word, then to the beginning of the following word if pressed again.

Option–Shift–Right Arrow : Extend text selection to the end of the current word, then to the end of the following word if pressed again.

Control-A : Move to the beginning of the line or paragraph.

Control-E : Move to the end of a line or paragraph.

Control-F : Move one character forward.

Control-B : Move one character backward.

Control-L : Center the cursor or selection in the visible area.

Control-P : Move up one line.

Control-N : Move down one line.

Control-O : Insert a new line after the insertion point.

Control-T : Swap the character behind the insertion point with the character in front of the insertion point.

Command–Left Curly Bracket ({) : Left align.

Command–Right Curly Bracket (}) : Right align.

Shift–Command–Vertical bar (|) : Center align.

Option-Command-F : Go to the search field.

Option-Command-T : Show or hide a toolbar in the app.

Option-Command-C : Copy Style: Copy the formatting settings of the selected item to the Clipboard.

Option-Command-V : Paste Style: Apply the copied style to the selected item.

Option-Shift-Command-V : Paste and Match Style: Apply the style of the surrounding content to the item pasted within that content.

Option-Command-I : Show or hide the inspector window.

Shift-Command-P : Page setup: Display a window for selecting document settings.

Shift-Command-S : Display the Save As dialog, or duplicate the current document.

Shift–Command–Minus sign (-) : Decrease the size of the selected item.

Shift–Command–Plus sign (+) : Increase the size of the selected item. Command–Equal sign (=) performs the same function.

Shift–Command–Question mark (?) : Open the Help menu.

To use these vision shortcuts, first choose Apple menu  > System Settings (or System Preferences), then click Keyboard. Click Keyboard Shortcuts, select Accessibility on the left, then select “Invert colors” and "Contrast" on the right.

Control-Option-Command-8 : Invert colors.

Control-Option-Command-Comma (,) and Control-Option-Command-Period (.) : Reduce contrast and increase contrast.

Use these shortcuts to change keyboard focus. To use some of these shortcuts, first choose Apple menu  > System Settings (or System Preferences), then click Keyboard. Click Keyboard Shortcuts, select Keyboard on the left, then select the shortcut's setting on the right.

Control-F2 or Fn-Control-F2: Move focus to the menu bar. You can then use the arrow keys to navigate the menu, press Return to open a selected menu or choose a selected menu item, or type the menu item's name to jump to that item in the selected menu.

Control-F3 or Fn-Control-F3 : Move focus to the Dock.

Control-F4 or Fn-Control-F4 : Move focus to the active window or next window.

Control-F5 or Fn-Control-F5 : Move focus to the window toolbar.

Control-F6 or Fn-Control-F6: Move focus to the floating window.

Control-Shift-F6 : Move focus to the previous panel.

Control-F7 or Fn-Control-F7 : Change the way Tab moves focus—between navigation of all controls on the screen, or only text boxes and lists.

Control-F8 or Fn-Control-F8 : Move focus to the status menu in the menu bar

Command–Grave accent (`) : Activate the next open window in the front app.

Shift–Command–Grave accent (`) : Activate the previous open window in the front app

Option–Command–Grave accent (`) : Move the focus to the window drawer.

Tab and Shift-Tab : Move to next control, move to previous control.

Control-Tab : Move to the next control when a text field is selected.

Control-Shift-Tab : Move to the previous grouping of controls.

Arrow keys : Move to the adjacent item in a list, tab group, or menu, or move sliders and adjusters (Up Arrow to increase values, Down Arrow to decrease values)

Control–Arrow keys : Move to a control adjacent to the text field.

Other accessibility shortcuts:

Option-Command-F5 or triple-press Touch ID : Show the Accessibility Shortcuts panel .

VoiceOver commands

Zoom in or out

Use Mouse Keys to control the pointer with your keyboard

If you're using VoiceOver, you might need to make VoiceOver ignore the next key press before you can use some of the shortcuts in this article.

Safari shortcuts

Spotlight shortcuts

Mail shortcuts

Photos shortcuts

Disk Utility shortcuts

Preview shortcuts

Apple Music shortcuts

Startup shortcuts

For more shortcuts, check the shortcut abbreviations shown in the menus of your apps. Every app can have its own shortcuts, and shortcuts that work in one app might not work in another.

Use emoji and symbols

Create your own shortcuts and resolve conflicts between shortcuts

Change the behavior of the function keys or modifier keys

Use a spoken command for a keyboard shortcut

Explore Apple Support Community

Find what’s been asked and answered by Apple customers.