FIGURE 2-6: Page margins.
Formatting page margins is covered in Chapter 6. They’re relevant to paragraph formatting in that the paragraph’s Left Indentation and Right Indentation settings are relative to the page margins.
To set paragraph indents, you have a host of choices. Rather than list them all, follow these steps to quickly set the indents:
1. Select the paragraph(s) you want to format.
If nothing is selected, only the current paragraph is affected. (The current paragraph is where the insertion pointer is located.)
2. Click the Layout tab.
3. In the Paragraph group, use the gizmos by the Left and Right Indent boxes to set the paragraph(s) indentation.
As you adjust the gizmos, the paragraph(s) in your document reflect any changes. You also see the gizmos on the Ruler shuffle around, if the Ruler is visible.
❯❯ Page margins aren’t fixed. They can be adjusted, which is a topic covered in Chapter 6. They do, however, affect paragraph indentation, which is always relative to the page margin – not to the edge of the page.
❯❯ The Normal style sets Word’s default paragraph with zero indentation and zero first-line indentation.
❯❯ It’s possible to set negative values for left and right indentation. When you do so, the paragraph’s edges slip into the page margin.
The first-line indent is special. You can adjust it in a number of ways to create some interesting paragraph formatting. Two such formats are illustrated in Figure 2-7.
FIGURE 2-7: A first-line indent and a hanging indent.
The first-line indent is pretty common (on the left in Figure 2-7). In fact, Word may automatically format all paragraphs that way if you press the Tab key when you start typing. Or you can follow these steps to apply a first-line indent:
1. Select the paragraph(s).
You can select one or more paragraphs or simply click the mouse in a paragraph to affect only its format.
2. Click the Home tab.
3.
The Paragraph dialog box appears.
4. Ensure that the Indents and Spacing tab is selected.
5. In the Indentation area, click the Special menu and choose First Line.
6. In the By box, type 0.5 for a ½-inch indent.
The half-inch indent is pretty standard.
7. Click OK.
To adjust both the first-line indent and left indent together, use the mouse to drag the Left Indent marker on the Ruler. Refer to Figure 2-5 to identify the Left Indent marker.
The hanging indent is more unusual than the first-line indent, as shown in Figure 2-7. It often appears in lists or in a series of descriptive paragraphs. To set this indent, heed these directions:
1. Select the paragraph(s) to modify.
2. Click the Home tab, and in the Paragraph group, click the Launcher.
The Paragraph dialog box appears.
3. On the Indents and Spacing tab, in the Indentation area, click the Special menu and choose Hanging.
4. In the By box, type 0.5 for a ½-inch hanging indent.
The first line doesn’t change, but the rest of the paragraph is indented by the value you set in the By box.
5. Click OK.
You can adjust the first-line indent if you like, but it’s best to use the Ruler for this operation: Adjust the First Line and Hanging Indent markers on the Ruler to set the paragraph’s format. That way, you can get immediate visual feedback on the effect.
When most Word users desire space between two paragraphs, they commit the deplorable sin of pressing the Enter key twice. This trick works, but it’s not proper formatting; an empty paragraph is a sad thing. The proper solution is to add space after the paragraph.
To add space between your document’s paragraphs, follow these steps:
1. Select all paragraphs you want to format.
Or you can format the first paragraph and then all the subsequent paragraphs inherit the format.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. In the Font group, note the text size.
For example, it may read 12 points.
4. Click the Layout tab.
5. In the Paragraph group, click the After box and type the same size value you remember from Step 3.
For example, type 12 pt for a 12-point font.
For document titles and headings, you probably want to add more space, which helps distance that element from the text around it. In fact, adding space before a heading helps keep that line separate from the text that comes before it.
To add space before a paragraph, repeat the steps in this section, but in Step 5 click the Before box.
❯❯ You can set spacing both before and after a paragraph. Because text lines up at the top of the page, most body-text paragraph formats specify space after, not before.
❯❯ If you use a first-line indent, do not add extra space after a paragraph. The indent is added for readability, to mark the start of a paragraph. Space is added after a paragraph when the first line isn’t indented, which also helps with readability. You don’t need to mix the two.
Within a paragraph, the area between lines of text is called the line spacing. This value can be adjusted to space out the paragraphs, which adds some readability but only when you don’t increase line spacing too much. Also, editors and collaborators might want more line spacing on a printed document so that they can write nasty notes.
The visual way to adjust line spacing is to select one or more paragraphs and follow these steps:
1. Click the Home tab.
2.
3. Point the mouse at the menu items to see how each one affects the paragraph.
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