Select existing text to italicize. Position your cursor in front of the first letter of the text to be italicized. Hold down the left mouse button and move your cursor over the text block to highlight it, then let go of the mouse button. The selected text will now be displayed in italics. For more complex designs, it's easier to use a tool like Adobe Illustrator or InDesign instead. They have built-in support for creating and applying typographic effects such as italics, boldface, and underlining. But if you are starting from scratch or don't have one of these programs available, here is how to do it manually. First, create a new document by clicking the New Document icon on the main menu or pressing Ctrl+N. Give the file a descriptive name so you can find it later. Then, select all the text you want to apply the effect to by dragging a box around it. You can only select text inside the document itself; you cannot select any image files or other documents. Finally, click the Italicize button in the Paragraph section of the Tools panel or press Alt+E. That's it! The text is now displayed in italics. You can also apply other text effects to your design, such as shadowing, coloring, or enlarging specific letters.