Suppose I go into the document pane and enter the entering mode.

I find that when I try to use the "format" toolbar to do boldface, italics or other format issues, it doesn't work at first. However, if I do formating via Menu>Format>Bold (or whatever), it works. Or if I do formatting via a right-click on the text in the document pane, it works.

If I do
Right-click on a toolbar>Customize>Options>Reset Menu and Toolbar Usage Data>Yes>Close

then the format toolbar works. But when I exit IQ and then reenter, I have to do this again to get the format toolbar to work.

Well, when I use the Reset trick, the format toolbar then works, but not completely. It won't register changes to text (such as boldfacing) when done via the Menu or the Right-click. (Normally the "B" on the toolbar toggles between boldface or not.)   But it will itself toggle the boldface or other formatting.
 
I am NOT doing any customization of the toolbars. (Well, I do move the formatting toolbar to the right side of the document pane, but I don't think that makes any difference to what happens.). And I am using the latest IQ, v121Pre5, but this problem existed before this version. I am not sure how far before.

ADDED SEVERAL DAYS LATER: It turns out that the formatting commands work if I call them from the "Edit Context Menu" toolbar, instead of from the "Format" toolbar. It is, of course, easy to put the "Edit Context Menu" toolbar anywhere I might otherwise put the "Format" toolbar. So the problem with the "Format" toolbar is just a quirk.