Google's Web-based email system, Gmail, offers two email creation interfaces. Plain text formatting does not offer advanced formatting tools, so you are restricted to simple text with formatting allowed only with spaces and line breaks. However, Gmail's rich formatting interface gives you many of the tools you are accustomed to on a word processor, including alignment tools, text effects and font colors.
Step 1
Log in to your Gmail account and click "Compose Email" to start a new email.
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Step 2
Click "Rich formatting," located just above the email body. If you see a series of icons above the email body, you are already in rich formatting mode. These icons represent your formatting tools.
Step 3
Click "B," "I" or "U" to bold, italicize or underline any subsequent text. If you currently have text highlighted, the formatting will be applied to it.
Step 4
Click "F" to select a font type.
Step 5
Click any of the three "T" icons to select font size, color or highlighting, respectively from left to right.
Step 6
Click the chain link icon to add a hyperlink. A window will appear allowing you to enter the text and URL. Click "OK" to add the link.
Step 7
Click the numbered or bullet list icons to create a list of information, formatted with numbers or bullets.
Step 8
Click the text icon, which has a black triangle pointing to the left or right, to indent your text.
Step 9
Click alignment icons, represented by a series of five horizontal lines, to change the alignment of the text. From left to right, the icons represent right, center and left alignment.
Step 10
Click the large quotation marks to format the text as an email quote.
Step 11
Click the "Tx" icon to remove formatting.
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