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Indenting Paragraphs in MSWord
and Other Word Processing Programs
Jerry Housman asked for an explanation of how to do various types of paragraph indenting within Microsoft Word. Well, the most common type is having the first line in each paragraph indented by a half inch. Most folks do this by simply pressing their TAB key at the beginning of each paragraph. (This paragraph has a typical indentation.)
Most of this information also applies to other word processors such as the ones in MSWorks, OpenOffice, and WordPerfect.
You can also use Word's "ruler settings" to make this kind of indentation happen automatically. If you don't see a Horizontal Ruler along the top edge of your document click View>Ruler.
Near the left end of the ruler you will see two tiny pyramid-shaped markers, with one of them inverted on top of the other. These markers can be dragged to the right to cause different things to happen within a paragraph.
With a selected paragraph, you can drag the top (inverted pyramid) marker a half inch to the right. This will cause the first line to be indented accordingly. If you then create subsequent paragraphs by pressing ENTER, each one will be likewise indented automatically.
If you drag the bottom marker to the right, the top marker will move with it. This will cause the entire paragraph to be indented to the right (like this one).
Hanging Indent (aka: Outdent)
You can create a "hanging indentation," wherein
the first line of a paragraph remains in
place while the rest of the paragraph is
indented to the right by whatever
measurement you set on the ruler.
(Half-inch indents are traditional, but you can have the markers point to any measurement you prefer.)
The "hanging" indentation above is created by pulling the bottom "pyramid" marker to the right, followed by moving the top marker back to its point of origin on the left. As always, pressing ENTER will carry whatever indentation you have established from one paragraph to the next.
If you move the markers and see no change taking place within a target paragraph it simply means the paragraph has not been selected. Normally, "selecting" a block of text means having the block highlighted by dragging your mouse across it and making it change color. In paragraph formatting, however, all that is required is to have your cursor anywhere within the paragraph.
By the way, the indents in this newsletter were created in HTML and may not look the same if copied into an MSWord document.
Setting Tabs with your Ruler
You can establish multiple "tab settings" within a line of text using Word's Horizontal Ruler. For instance, you could create a menu that shows the prices of a small, medium, and large food item. Your header line might read: Item, Small, Medium, Large, and the subsequent lines would name the items and show their various prices.
Notice a tiny "L" at the far left end of the ruler. Click it once and it will become a "backwards" L. Click it again and other symbols will appear that indicate "Center" and "Decimal" tab settings, along with the "Left" and "Right" settings indicated by the "L" symbols. With an alignment symbol chosen, clicking into the ruler will establish corresponding tab settings. Try it. It's easy.
© Donald Ray Edrington – All Rights Reserved
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