Paragraph formatting: alignment, spacing and lists

Leyla is writing an application: the title should be centred, the date on the right and the text in neat paragraphs. The first time, she pressed the spacebar fifteen times to push the title to the “middle” — and when she changed the font, the title slid out of place again. In this lesson you will learn to do it properly, with paragraph formatting.

Alignment and spacing

Line spacing is chosen with the Home › Paragraph › Line and Paragraph Spacing button: 1.0 (single), 1.15, 1.5, 2.0 (double) and so on. School essays often require 1.5 spacing. In the same list, Add Space Before Paragraph and Remove Space After Paragraph control the gap between paragraphs. For exact values, type points into the Before and After boxes in Layout › Paragraph.

Indents and tab stops

An indent is how far a paragraph is pulled in from the page margin. Home › Paragraph › Increase Indent and Decrease Indent move the whole paragraph. For a first-line indent, open the Paragraph dialog (the small arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Home › Paragraph group), choose First line in the Special list and type, say, 1.25 cm in By. Hanging is the opposite — the first line stays left and the rest are pulled in; bibliographies are laid out this way.

You can also drag indents on the ruler (View › Show › Ruler): the top triangle is the first-line indent, the bottom triangle the hanging indent, the small rectangle under it the left indent of the whole paragraph, and the triangle on the right the right indent.

The Tab key moves the cursor to the next tab stop. By default there is one every 1.27 cm (0.5 inch), but you can set your own. The button at the left end of the ruler chooses the tab type: Left, Center, Right, Decimal (lines up numbers on the decimal point) and Bar (a vertical line). Pick a type, then click the ruler where you want the stop.

Bulleted, numbered and multilevel lists

• Home › Paragraph › Bullets — a bulleted list: items whose order doesn't matter (a shopping list). The arrow next to the button chooses the bullet style.
• Home › Paragraph › Numbering — a numbered list: steps, rules, rankings. When you add or delete items, the numbers update themselves.
• Home › Paragraph › Multilevel List — a multilevel list: 1, 1.1, 1.1.1… At the start of an item, Tab demotes it one level and Shift+Tab promotes it.
• To end a list, press Enter once more on the empty item. To start numbering again from 1, right-click the number › Restart at 1; to carry on from the previous list, › Continue Numbering.