is there a convenient way to change text color in MS Word?

i need to change text color constantly and it drives me nuts to do it manually all the time.

does word provide a simple possibility to do this and change back to the default color through a configurable hotkey or something similar?

if not i also would use a macro program, but the ones i tested in the end caused more trouble then they helped.

i wasted already three hours -
any ideas ? ; )

oh, i almost forgot. I am also looking for a !!!real simple!!! multi clipboard or any other possibility that lets me paste common text snippets easily.
But it HAS to be slim and simple. I tried a few programs and each one was completely overloaded with thousands of (for me) useless features.

sorry, this should have gone in the XP section!!