Formatting paragraphs in Word. How to indent paragraphs in Word? How to make normal paragraphs in Word

Visual perception is an important component when working with any kind of information, including text. Visual memory “works” more efficiently when there is a clearly structured text in front of your eyes.

The most common and popular text editor is MS Word. It is this application that is used by the lion's share of users when it is necessary to prepare any text document. One of the essential attributes of formatted text is indentation. Properly placed paragraphs will help not only improve visual perception of information, but also highlight semantic blocks for a better understanding of the contents of the document.

How to make a paragraph in Word: ruler and its markers

One of the MS Word editor tools that is actively used when creating paragraph indents is the ruler. This attribute is located above and to the left of the main document field. If you don't see the "Ruler", check:

Is the Page Layout mode set? If not, turn it on.
Is the "Ruler" option enabled? To do this, go to the “View” tab and in the “Show” section, check the box next to the “Ruler” field.

As for the attribute itself, it is represented by 4 markers. 3 of them are located on the left side, 1 on the right.

Bottom left marker - will indent the entire text (or a fragment of it) without highlighting the first line.
Middle marker – will indent (shift to the right) the entire block except the first line of text.
The top marker is for creating a paragraph in the text. Will create an indent exclusively for the first line - red line.
The lower right marker is intended for setting the amount of indentation to the right (distance to the right margin).

When starting to edit text, decide what type of indentation you need and what its value will be. Next, proceed to formatting.

How to make a paragraph in Word: paragraph indentation on the left side

There are several ways to create this indentation.

Ruler

Place the mouse cursor in the fragment in which you want to select the red line or select the entire text (Ctrl + A).
By moving the bottom marker, set the required indent size.

MS Word Menu

Select part of the text that requires indentation, or the entire document.
Go to the document menu: “Page Layout” – “Paragraph” and click the icon in the corner with the arrow.
Set the desired parameters for the left margin (the distance is measured from the set left margin).
Click "Ok".

How to make a paragraph in Word: paragraph indentation on the right side

In addition to the traditional left indentation, when formatting text, you may need to indent the right side.

Select the document (press Ctrl + A) or part of it.
Go to the “Paragraph” section of the “Page Layout” tab and click the arrow icon in the square (in the lower right corner).
Set the required number of cm in the “Indent to the right” field.

Another way to set the right indent is to refer to the lower right marker on the “Ruler” and place it in the desired location. By simultaneously setting the right and left indents, you can achieve the desired location of a piece of text (in the center, shifted to the left or right).

How to make a paragraph in Word: red line

To highlight the next logical block of your document, it is rational to use the “red line”. This term implies the formation of an indentation (or protrusion) exclusively for the first line of a semantic fragment.

If the user is working with the “Ruler”, you need to turn to the top marker and move it to the left to create a protrusion or to the right to create a paragraph.
Or go to the “Page Layout” tab and in the “Paragraph” block click on the arrow icon. In the “Red Line” field, set the type of indentation (indentation or paragraph) and its value.

How to make a paragraph in Word: mirror indents

This option is especially in demand when printing a document in the “Book” format.

Select text or a fragment of it.
Go to “Page Layout” – “Paragraph” – “arrow icon”.
In the formatting window, set the values for indents (left and right) and check the “Mirror margins” box.
The left and right padding options will change to “Inside” and “Outside” padding.
Press the “Ok” key to apply the specified changes to the text.

If you want your text to be interesting and understandable, create a correctly formatted and competent document.

If you are printing a report, writing a coursework or dissertation, or typing any other text in Word, then creating paragraphs is one of the mandatory points that must be followed for the correct formatting of the document. Moreover, paragraphs in Word make text easier to read.

In this article we will look at how make a red line in Word so that your text complies with the design rules that are established for the document.

Make sure your document is opened in "Page layout". In this case, the corresponding icon will be highlighted at the bottom of the window.

If you have selected a different mode, click on "Page Layout".

A ruler should appear on the left and top of the document. If it is not displayed on the sheet, go to the "View" tab and in the "Show" group, check the "Ruler" box.

Now pay attention to the top line, we will be interested in it. On it you will see one marker on the right side and three markers on the left side. We need the ones on the left.

By moving the bottom marker, you will indent all the text in the paragraph. Middle Marker – will create an indent for text throughout the entire paragraph except the first line. But the top marker is exactly what you need to make a paragraph in Word.

So, in order to make paragraphs in a document, select all the text, press the key combination “Ctrl+A”, and move the top marker to the desired distance on the ruler. The ruler division value is 0.25 cm, so the distance for a paragraph can be set quite accurately.

If you have not yet typed text in a document, then immediately set the marker on the ruler to the required distance. Now when typing, when you finish typing in one paragraph, press “Enter” and move on to the next paragraph, the indent for the first line will appear automatically.

You can add a paragraph in Word in another way. To do this, select all the text, go to the “Home” tab and in the “Paragraph” group, click on the small black arrow in the lower right corner.

The following dialog box will open. In it, on the tab "Indents and Spacing", in the “first line” field, select “Indent” from the drop-down list. Next, in the “to:” field, indicate the required distance for indents. Click OK.

In order to make a continuous paragraph in Word, open the dialog shown above. In it, go to the tab "Page Position" and check the box "don't break the paragraph". Click OK.

Now, if a paragraph is located at the end of the page, Word will either move one line up, placing it on this page, automatically changing the spacing, or move the entire paragraph to the beginning of a new page.

I think now you definitely won’t have any questions about how you can make a paragraph in Word.

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Continuing to study the capabilities of the MS Word word processor, today we will look at such a popular function as setting the required indent for a paragraph. This indentation is also called the red line. This operation is done the same way in all versions of Microsoft Word. You will find out exactly how in this article.

Setting paragraph indents in Word

So, to set the indent of the required size, we need a ruler. You will learn about what it is and how to enable it if it is missing.

After the ruler is turned on, to set the indentation of a paragraph, you need to place the mouse cursor at its beginning. Then, on the same ruler that you will have at the top of the MS Word sheet, you need to pull the upper triangle to the right by the amount that is required.

The position of the cursor and the appearance of the upper triangle, which you need to drag to the right to add a paragraph indent

Thus, you will make a red line for the paragraph in which the input cursor was located.

If you need to set an indent for all paragraphs in the text, then to do this quickly you need to select the entire text (for example, using “CTRL” + “A”) and do the same thing - drag the upper triangle on the MS Word ruler to the right.

As you can see, the process of indenting the red line in MS Word is quite simple and can be done in a few mouse clicks. The main thing is to enable the display of the ruler at the top of the document if it is missing.

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Dividing text into paragraphs is an indispensable attribute of a properly prepared document or website. Continuous text is very inconvenient to read. Its presence is a sign of disrespect for the user. Having seen such text, the reader will most likely turn to another similar site.

How to make a paragraph in Word? In the simplest case, they are automatically created every time you press the Enter key on the keyboard. The “red line” of a paragraph is implemented by first pressing the Tab key. The shift to the right of the first line cursor will be a fixed 1.25 cm. But there are much more possibilities for formatting paragraphs in Word 2010. By implementing and remembering their optimal settings, the user will save time when typing large amounts of text or formatting already typed documents.

When formatting paragraphs, you need to know how to highlight all or part of them. The fastest way is to triple-click on any word in the paragraph. Selecting part of a paragraph before/after the cursor is implemented by using the key combination Ctrl+Shift+up/down arrow.

Paragraph formatting in Word can be done visually using the top ruler or by setting and remembering exact values.

To enable the display of the top ruler, go to the “View” tab, and in the “Show” section, check the box next to the “Ruler” tool.

After this, a ruler with four sliders appears at the top - three on the left and one on the right. When you hover your mouse over them, you can read the purpose of each:

lower left rectangle – left indentation;
the left triangle with the point up is a protrusion;
right triangle with point up – indentation on the right;
the left triangle with the point down is the indent of the first line.

Moving the first and third sliders will change the indentation of the paragraph from the left and right edges of the sheet, i.e. its margin. Indenting text instead of indentation is rarely used. The last triangular slider determines the indentation of the “red line”.

“Paragraph” section of the “Home” tab

Tools

Several tools in this section directly relate to paragraph formatting. Each click of the “Increase Indent” tool will lead to the shift of the entire paragraph indicated by the red arrow by a fixed distance equal to 1.25 cm (the same value was when pressing the “Tab” key). The tool located to the left of the red rectangle is called “Reduce Indent”. It returns a paragraph shifted to the right the same distance to the left.

The next group of tools in the red rectangle aligns paragraph text accordingly to left, center, right, and width.

The last case requires explanation. The following screenshot illustrates how the distance between words in a paragraph changes when justified.

The drop-down list of the “Spacing” tool, in addition to changing the line spacing, will also allow you to control the spacing between paragraphs.

The following screenshot illustrates how a paragraph moves down (indicated by the red arrow) when you select the “Add space” option before the paragraph.” Obviously, if you click the next line, the paragraph will return to its original position.

Drop-down window

The most precise way to customize a paragraph is in the drop-down window of the “Paragraph” section. An alternative way to open this window is to select a paragraph and call up its context menu (right-click).

The “Alignment” list duplicates the 4 options for aligning paragraph text discussed above. In the "Indent" fields you can specify the exact value of the left and right indent. The “Spacing” fields are designed to precisely set the paragraph spacing before and after it in points (1 pt = 0.35 mm). The user can prevent adding spacing between paragraphs if they belong to the same style.

The “First Line” list allows you to optimally configure the “red line”. By default it is not there. By selecting Setback (or, rarely, Overhang), the original standard value of 1.25 cm can be changed to any other value.

Once the paragraph settings are complete, the user can save the selected values by clicking “Default.” In the future, as you type, they will be implemented automatically. In particular, by selecting the standard "red line" indentation, the user will be spared the need to press the Tab key before typing the first line of each paragraph. In this case, the upper left triangle will have a constant position, which is indicated by the red arrow in the next screenshot.

Special formatting

Let's consider practically significant, more complex cases of paragraph formatting.

Sometimes it is necessary to cancel the division of text into paragraphs. How to remove paragraphs in Word? To do this, you will have to remove unnecessary paragraph marks. During normal work in Word they are invisible. To display them, on the “Home” tab, in the “Paragraph” section, click the last tool “Show all characters”.

To automatically remove a paragraph mark:

On the “Home” tab, open the “Editing” tool and click “Replace”;
Open the “Special” list and select the first item “Paragraph Mark” in it. A special symbol will appear on the “Find” line;
On the “Replace with” line, enter one space by pressing the appropriate key.
Click "Replace All".

As you can see, instead of the previous two, a single paragraph appeared.

When designing multi-page documents, you may need to make sure that each paragraph begins on a new page. In other cases, on the contrary, you need to lengthen the page so that a large paragraph can be completely placed on it.

Select all text.
In its context menu, click “Paragraph”.
Go to "Page Position".

To introduce a page break after each paragraph, check the box next to “from a new page.” And in order to prevent a paragraph from moving to another page, you need to activate the “do not break paragraph” option.

Video: How to make a paragraph in Word 2013/2016?

As you can see in the screenshot, the “ban dangling lines” option is activated by default in Word. It blocks the last line of a paragraph on a page from being displayed separately from its other lines, which is very convenient.

When formatting a text document in Microsoft Word, information should be visually divided into paragraphs. A paragraph is a piece of text, the first line of which is highlighted with a small indent. The formatting procedure itself is not complicated, but there are nuances that PC users may not be aware of. How to make a paragraph in Word correctly?

Option one: using a special slider

Above the worksheet there is a ruler on which you will see 3 sliders on the left and 1 slider on the right. To set the paragraph we need the top left slider. You need to move it to the right, which will ultimately lead to the same shift of the first line of each new paragraph.

Important: it is recommended to carry out the described procedure before starting work so that the function applies to all paragraphs. If the text has already been written, you must first select it and only then move the slider. Place the cursor before the appropriate paragraph to indent only one.

Option two: use the program menu

To do this, in Word 2016 go to the “Home” tab, and in older versions we find the “Format” tab. Next, click the arrow in the lower right corner of the “paragraph” subsection, after which a functional window will appear. There we find the “first line” field, where we select “indent”.

Important: to indent each paragraph in this way, be sure to highlight all the text.

An alternative way to format a paragraph is to select the text, right-click and find the “paragraph” button in the pop-up window. The next operation is similar.

Option three: interval

In Word, paragraphs can be separated not only by indentation, but also by a small space between lines. As a result, small sections of text information are visually highlighted. To adjust the spacing, you need to open the same functional window and select the desired length of the gap between paragraphs.

Option last: TAB button

To indent, just press the TAB button. Thus, the cursor immediately moves a certain distance to the right, and you can cancel the action by pressing backspace.

How NOT to indent

The process of creating a paragraph is simple, but beginners, not knowing the specifics of working in Word, try to indent using spaces. This can be clearly seen if you enable the “display all characters” function, where the space is displayed as a dot.

In some cases, this method can significantly spoil further work with text, so you should use the program functionality intended for this, and not the spacebar button.