How to Publish Post in steemit and make money

I, myself, am new to Steemit posting. I need some help, guidance, even pity on posting please.... At this point, I am a bit Frustrated and CONFUSED!! Let me tell you what I know and what I need so you can understand and hopefully help me, and I am guessing others just starting out as well.

This post is in two parts:
I - The questions I am hoping someone will answer
II - How to Post on Steemit, a beginners outline.

BOTTOM LINE QUESTIONS FOR ME?

Is there a way to use the "editor" option so you can change fonts easily and ALSO have the Preview Box to see what you are posting before you post? OR must I choose one or the other?
What formatting options are available and how do you use them?
Can you make your text in different colors?
HOW TO POST BEGINNERS GUIDE (a beginners perspective)

WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR FINAL POST VERSION TO LOOK LIKE??

Me, myself? I love to make things pretty. SO I would like to make the content more interesting with different formatting choices such as different color fonts, bold, italic, underlining. I was very sad to find out that Microsoft Word shortcuts like Ctrl+B to bold text did not work here. I also have not found color font options?
(Thank goodness copy, cut, and paste work the same. Also, Home and End buttons on keyboard.)

STEP ONE (1) - CLICK ON SUBMIT A STORY
I happily saw and clicked on the "submit a story" link at the top right of the screen to the left of the photo or image of you and ended up here in the big box in which I am now typing. So far, so good.

STEP TWO (2) Fill in the 3 text boxes:

TEXT BOXES

Top for title
Second large box for body of your post
Bottom box to place your tags
STEP THREE (3) - THE BIGGIE...... ADD PICTURES, PROOF READ, EDIT, AND APPROVE YOUR POST

GOOD NEWS - there is a - PREVIEW and there is an EDITOR button

BAD NEWS - I do not see that I can use them both at the same time????

The PREVIEW allows you to see at the bottom of the page what your post will look like and I loved this!
I also saw an "editor" button at the right side of the page between the title and body boxes. When you click on this, you get a nice formatting bar that allows you to highlight text and bold, italic, strike through, number etc. Unfortunately, when I click on the editor, the preview goes away, and vice versa. I see no way to have both of these options...but hope springs eternal.

MORE GOOD NEWS
Some Steemians are very helpful! I would like to publicly thank two such people:

@crok who provided some guidance on how to make text italics, bold and/or Bold italic using 1, 2, or 3 the (*), respectively, before and after a word.
SO - USE YOUR ASTERISKs
One * before and after text = Italics
Two * before and after text = Bold
Three * before and after text = Italic Bold

AND THANK YOU TO