Engraving Text

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 27, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

One of the ways in which you can format text in your document is to apply what Word calls "engraving." When you engrave text, it appears to be sunken into the page, with shadowing at the edges. Engraved text is the opposite of embossed text. To engrave text, follow these steps:

Choose the text you want to engrave.
Choose Font from the Format menu. Word displays the Font dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Font dialog box.

Make sure the Engrave check box is selected.
Click on OK.

You can also play with different font colors and background colors to make the engraved text appear different.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1432) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Complex Searches for Documents

When working with lots of documents, you may have need from time to time to discover which of those documents contain ...

Discover More

Counting Cells Containing a Formula

Cells in a worksheet can contain different types of information, such as numbers, text, and formulas. If you want to ...

Discover More

Generating a Unique ID Number

If you are keeping track of people or things within Excel, you may want to devise unique ID numbers you can use for those ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Underlining Quoted Text

Do you have a document in which you need to convert all the quoted text (text surrounded by quotes) to underlined text? ...

Discover More

Understanding Font Styles

Fonts, by default, come with one or more styles that define variations of how that font is displayed in your document. ...

Discover More

Fonts in the Font Drop-Down List

Ever wonder how to customize which fonts appear in the Font drop-down list? Making changes to this list is not easy. This ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is eight more than 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.