When composing, replying, or forwarding an email in Outlook, you can easily italicize a piece of text as follows:

1. In the message body, select the text you will italicize.

2. Press Ctrl + I keys together.

Now the selected text is italic.

Some users may be familiar to buttons in the Outlook Ribbon. Therefore, they can italicize the selected text in the message body with the Italic button directly.

1. In the message body, select the text you will italicize.

2. Click the Italic button  in the Font group on the Format Text tab.

Tips: you can also find out the Italic button in the Basic Text group on the Message tab.

Now the selected text is italic.

You can also italicize the selected text in the message body with the Font dialog, when you are composing, replying, or forwarding an email in Outlook.

1. In the message body, select the text you will italicize.

2. Go to the Font group on the Format Text tab, and click the anchor  at the bottom-right corner to open the Font dialog.

Tips: You can also press Ctrl + D keys together to open the Font dialog.

3. In the Font dialog, enable the Font tab, click to highlight Italic in the Font style list box, and click the OK button.

Now the selected text is italic.

You can easily clear the italic formatting with selecting the italic text and clicking the Italic button  in the Font group on the Format Text tab.