Macro of the Month – November 2024 – ItalicQuickSwitch

Applies and removes italics

Applying italics is a pretty quick task. What if you could make it easier? This month’s macro formats text with minimal mouse movement, making it especially valuable when working with multiple terms that need italics or if you are concerned about repetitive strain.

This Month’s Macro – ItalicQuickSwitch

While Word's built-in italic formatting requires selecting the text first, ItalicQuickSwitch eliminates this step. Simply place your cursor in the word and run the macro—no selection needed. This small change adds up to significant time savings and reduced hand strain across a long document.

The macro is useful when you need to italicize words used as words, foreign terms, and book titles, as well as to remove italics.

How It Works

To italicize, or unitalicize, a single word: Place the cursor anywhere in the word and run the macro.

To italicize a one-word term, place the cursor in the word and run ItalicQuickSwitch.

To remove italics from a one-word term, place the cursor in the word and run ItalicQuickSwitch.

To italicize, or unitalicize, more than one word: Roughly select at least one letter from each word by using the shift-click technique. Place the cursor inside the first word, hold down the Shift key, and click inside the last word, then run the macro. As long as you capture one letter from each word, the macro will italicize, or unitalicize, the complete terms.

To italicize a multiword term, roughly select the words by placing the cursor anywhere inside the first word, holding down the Shift key, and clicking anywhere inside the last word and run ItalicQuickSwitch.

Download the code:

• www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/I/ItalicQuickSwitch

Related macros:

• ItalicQuoteToggle: When you place the cursor anywhere inside a pair of quotation marks and run the macro, it removes the punctuation and italicizes the text (it does the reverse, as well).

Ready to Try It? 

Try out ItalicQuickSwitch. Copy the below text into a Word document and use ItalicQuickSwitch to add and remove italics—use the low-strain click-shift technique for the third example:

• The term belfry refers to a room at the top of a tower containing bells.

• Lightning struck the belfry last night.

• The 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style was published in September 2024.

Word Macros A to Z – Starting February 12, 2025

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Questions? Comments?

Have you recently discovered a macro you’d like to share with other editors? Do you have a question about this macro or others? Please comment on this post. 

Happy macroing,
Jennifer

ps: Don’t forget to back up your macros.