Make sure that you allow pages to choose their colors and that you haven't enabled High Contrast in the Accessibility settings.

• Firefox > Preferences > Content : Fonts & Colors > Colors : [X] "Allow pages to choose their own colors, instead of my selections above"

Make sure that you do not block JavaScript.

Start Firefox in Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).

• Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode

thanks, but I don't care about the colors. I am trying to change the text to italics and underline.

You may be hiding those buttons if settings are wrong or you have an extension that hide the toolbar or its icons.

Where do I look to check that?

If buttons or other active elements appear when you hover them on a web page then they are obviously hidden and that shouldn't happen. That can happen if the button is only a (background) image and that image is hidden. Toolbars with the buttons on it may also be created via JavaScript.

Okay, but I don't know how to create it in Java Script.

Such formatting choices should be part of the editor that is used to enter your text.

Are you talking about composing new mail or answering mail or writing messages on a forum?

Composing any email. There is nowhere to choose i or b. It is very frustrating.

Did you check the settings in my first answer and tried my suggestion about safe mode?

I started in safe mode, changed to default where you said, restarted Firefox and still no options for text. Was there something else I was supposed to do?

Are you sure that the mail does support that feature on its text editor?

Did it work before, maybe with another Firefox version?

Have never worked in Firefox. I guess I don't have that feature. Thanks for all your help and the time you spent. I appreciate it.

You're welcome