In the Table Options dialog that opens, use the spinners to incrementally change each of the four margins, or simply type in the margin that you want into each field Top, Bottom, Left or Right. Then click Cell Margins in the Alignment group. To change the cell margins, we again click in the table and go to the Layout tab on the right. They can be set separately for the top, bottom, and either side of the cells. To use these options, simply select the text you want to format with the cursor, open the paragraph menu, choose the type and size of indent you want to apply, and click OK to change the indentation for the selected text.Cell Margins and Cell Spacing are two important settings in any Word Table but they aren’t used much and not well understood.Ĭell margins are the spaces between your text and the edge of the cell. Mirror indents – Clicking this will change the left and right indent options to say Inside and Outside This will mean that indents are “mirrored” on odd and even pages, which helps ensure consistent formatting when printing something in a book format.The most common use for this is to add a hanging indent in a reference list (e.g., as required in APA referencing). Hanging – This will indent each line after the first in a paragraph.Typically, this type of indent would be used as an alternative to paragraph spacing. First line – This option indents the first line of each paragraph to a custom value.The other settings here can be used to add special indentations to your document. The left and right indent options here work the same as in the Layout tab on the ribbon. In the new window, you will find an Indentation section.
This can be accessed by going to Home > Paragraph, clicking the Line and Paragraph Spacing button, and then selecting Line Spacing Options… from the dropdown menu. Special Indentationsįor even more control over the indentation in your document, you can open the main Paragraph menu. Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter! Custom indentation. This has the added bonus of letting you indent text by a custom amount. The Decrease Indent button, meanwhile, does the exact opposite.Īlternatively, go to Layout > Paragraph on the ribbon and adjust the values in the left and right indent boxes as required. The Increase Indent button adds a 0.5” (1.27cm) indent at the left margin for the entire paragraph (not just the first line). This includes the Paragraph section of the Home tab, where you will find Increase Indent and Decrease Indent buttons. You can find the basic indentation options in Microsoft Word on the main ribbon. But for more control over text indentation in your document, read on. If all you want to do is begin each paragraph with a half-inch indent, this is fine.
It also automatically formats the text so that subsequent paragraphs have a first-line indent. In Microsoft Word, this adds a 0.5” (1.27cm) indent at the left margin. One simple way to indent text is to place the cursor at the start of a paragraph and hit the tab key on your keyboard.
SETTING INDENTS IN WORD HOW TO
To help out, then, we’ve prepared this complete guide on how to indent text in a document. But there are many extra options that you may miss if you’re not already a confident Microsoft Word user. Microsoft Word: How to Indent Text in a Documentįormatting text in MS Word is both pleasingly simple and annoyingly complicated.