When you highlight text in a paper in PERRLA Online, a small formatting toolbar pops up right above it. We call it the formatting balloon. It puts the formatting you use most, including heading styles, one click away, so you don't have to reach up to the ribbon.
Opening the formatting balloon
- Highlight text in your paper. Click and drag with your mouse, or hold Shift and use the arrow keys.
- Let go of the mouse button (or the Shift key). The balloon appears above your selection.
If there isn't room above your text, the balloon shows up below it instead. It always stays on your screen. To close it, click anywhere else in your paper.
What's in the balloon
- Bold, Italic, and Underline
- Text style: Paragraph, Heading 1 through Heading 5, and Block Quote. Each option is shown the way it will look in your paper's format.
- Text alignment: Left, Center, Right, and Justify.
- Superscript and Subscript
- Decrease indent and Increase indent
- Bulleted list and Numbered list
- Clear: removes bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript, and subscript from the highlighted text. Headings, lists, and alignment stay as they are.
Text style and Text alignment each open a short menu. Here's the alignment menu:
Setting a heading from the balloon
- Highlight the text you want to turn into a heading.
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In the balloon, click the Text style dropdown.
It shows the current style, like Paragraph. - Select the heading level you want.
To turn a heading back into regular text, highlight it and choose Paragraph from the same dropdown.
Not sure which level to use? See How to set Text & Heading Styles (Online).
Why some buttons are missing
The balloon only shows the buttons that work for the text you've highlighted.
- Title page, author note, and reference list: your format sets how these look, so the balloon keeps to Bold, Italic, Underline, Superscript, Subscript, and Clear.
- Inside a table: there's no Text style dropdown, since a heading can't go in a table cell.
- Alignment is hidden on headings, table captions and notes, figures, equations, and page breaks. Your format sets where those sit on the page.
Using the keyboard
- Press Alt+F10 (Option+F10 on a Mac) to move into the balloon.
- Use the Left and Right arrow keys to move between buttons, and Enter or Space to use one.
- Press Esc to go back to your text. Your highlight stays where it was.
Good to know
- The balloon works on a desktop or laptop computer. On a touch screen, use your device's own selection menu and the ribbon.
- It's available in papers created in the new PERRLA Online editor. Papers in the classic editor use the ribbon.
- It doesn't appear when you select your whole paper with Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on a Mac).
- Everything in the balloon is also on the ribbon at the top of the editor, so use whichever you like.