If you’re running an earlier version of Microsoft Office, make sure to check out our article on creating custom bullet points in Word 2010.
Using Custom Bullet Points in Word 2016 and Word 2013
When you come to the point in your document where you want to create a bullet point list, highlight the text you need. Here you might typically just click the Bullets button from the Mini Toolbar (unless you disabled it) to add the standard bullet points that everyone uses.
Of course, you can select the bullet button from the Ribbon under the Home tab in the Paragraph section, too.
But, you can select the bullet drop-down menu to choose one of the designs from the Bullet Library for a few more options.
Now, to create a more customized look, select Define New Bullet from the drop-down list.
Then in the Define New Bullet screen select either Symbol, Picture, or Font — we’ll take a look at each one.
Symbol brings up a character map where you can choose whichever one you like. Note that you can choose any font that you have installed on your computer.
If you choose Font, you can format your bullet with color, emphasis, etc.
Pictures will bring up an “Insert Pictures” screen. Here you can browse for images on your PC, Bing, Facebook, Flickr, or OneDrive. Note that if you use a picture, it’s treated as a font so there isn’t any way to resize them like traditional graphics. You need to use the font point size to change it.
In the following example, I chose an image of my dog from my local machine. I increased the text size to help you see it better. I found that using actual images can be rather difficult versus symbols or icons. But feel free to try out other options and find the perfect image; be creative and have fun!
Every time you add a new bullet it will be stored in the Bullet Library so you can easily access them again. What are some of your favorite customized bullets? Leave a comment below and let us know. Comment Name * Email *
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