Do you have difficulty understanding when to use boldface in your documents? It is a common doubt for many people who use a Word processor. With this article I'll try to clarify your ideas and in the video I'll show you how to put them into practice.

In word processing and typography boldface - also called bold - is a graphic effect which, by increasing the thickness of characters, serves to emphasize certain words in order to highlight their meaning. You put bold text to draw the eye to certain words of particular relevance.

There are other techniques to make a text stand out, such as italics, small caps, underlining, spacing, color, etc.. However, it is important not to abuse them, because boldface loses its functionality if it is used on too many words, and it is important to use graphic effects in an appropriate way, for example avoid using italics instead of boldface.

Boldface should be used only on a few keywords whose meaning you want to highlight, as if you wanted to emphasize the words that identify an article. It is always inadvisable to use it on large portions of text. If you notice sentences or paragraphs entirely in bold, it is likely that you are looking at an improper use of this graphic effect.

I will list some basic rules to use when writing a document:

1. Boldface is used only on the most significant keywords in a text;
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2. If a keyword is present several times, it is preferable to use it only on the first one or, strategically, near the part of the text where you want to attract the eye;
3. Boldface type should be used on words near the end of a paragraph, because putting it on keywords near the end forces the eye to go back in search of the paragraph and read it more carefully, which is not always the case
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4. Bold should not be used in combination with other graphic effects. For example, italics+bold is ugly and weighs down the text;
5. Underlined is equivalent to bold, but it is not very elegant. It is always advisable to use bold instead of underlined.

Boldface should be applied only in the post-production phase of the text, that is to say, in the phase after writing in which the text is formatted and paginated. During the drafting it would be inappropriate to worry about applying stylistic effects to what you are writing. Also because you would not have an overview of what are the significant words that the text will contain.

The techniques for applying boldface to a word vary depending on the Word processor you are using. Using Biblos, boldface is applied quickly by selecting the keyword - two clicks - and clicking the boldface button on the Format toolbar. For those who prefer to do it even faster, the shortcut key that applies boldface is Ctrl+G.

Bold, as well as the other styles, can also be shown in Braille printing. Braille printing of styles is little used, but it is an option that can be enabled in Biblos that allows you to keep these elements even within Braille documents. However, for Braille there are other techniques to highlight the text, since the sense to be affected is touch.

Did you know that Google also indexes its content based on the use of boldface on pages? Using boldface properly is one of the strategies that helps SEO optimization to improve search engine rankings.

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