Simple question about visual editor

With the Visual editor I can’t seem to find a way to change character size or indentation without changing the whole paragraph. There must be an easy way to separate areas to be formatted without inserting two lines for a new paragraph. I am sure this is obvious but I haven’t been able to find it.

Is there a page somewhere with instructions on using the visual editor? All I can find is descriptions of icons and keyboard shortcuts.

Thanks for your patience.