Text Edit: Using bold and italics

I have the following version of Text Edit:
1.4 (220)
Edit, RTF, Word, HTML, Unicode and Plain Text Files

I'm running Mac OS X v. 10.4.11

I'm currently in RTFD format.

Here's my question: Why are my italic and bold buttons dead????

Thank you in advance for

Are you sure you are in Rich text mode and not plain text? Under Format it says something like make Rich text.

I'm definitely in RTFD format.