Three Ways to Indent Paragraphs in Microsoft Word

UPDATED version of this tutorial: • How to Indent Paragrap... . Learn three ways to indent paragraphs in Microsoft Word: the ruler, the tab key, and the paragraph dialog box.
This video was filmed in Word 2016. However, the steps are the same in Word 2019 and Word for Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) and are similar in Word 2013 and Word 2010.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:40 Indent Paragraphs with the Tab Key
1:12 Indent Paragraphs with the Ruler
2:09 Indent Paragraphs with the Paragraph Dialog Box
📝Companion Blog Post
====================
erinwrightwriting.com/three-w...
💻 Related Resources
==================
How to Use Microsoft Word Playlist: • How to Use Microsoft Word
How to Use the Ruler in Microsoft Word
• How to Use the Ruler i...
How to Adjust Page Margins in Microsoft Word
• How to Adjust Page Mar...
How to Create Hanging Indents in Microsoft Word
• How to Create Hanging ...
How to Change the Font, Font Size, and Font Color in Microsoft Word
• How to Change the Font...
Please visit my blog at erinwrightwriting.com for more easy-to-follow tips on writing, editing, and document software.
If you have a specific question about Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat, please leave your question in the comment section below. Although I can’t guarantee that I will be able to accommodate all requests, I will certainly make an effort to create as many viewer-requested videos as possible.
Thank you for watching!
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All Rights Reserved © 2024 Erin Wright

[@erinwrightwriting]

You can find the transcript of this tutorial on my blog at goo.gl/q7EBFH. Thank you for watching!

[@kaisumpter1]

I wish I could like this A MILLION TIMES , THANK YOU

[@erinwrightwriting]

You are very kind! Thank you for watching!

[@lupitasalas3141]

This brief tutorial is wonderful, It is clear, slow, visual and conducted with such a beautiful voice. Thank you for sharing your skills!

[@erinwrightwriting]

I appreciate your kind words! Thank you for watching!

[@kriskotaro3680]

Thanks for all these tutorials, Mme Wright. (Good voice in-between).

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you so much!

[@swayamgohil]

It helped Your voice is very clear and easy to understand I CAN CLICK ON THAT LIKE BUTTON WITH MY EYES CLOSED THX

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching. I appreciate your positive feedback!

[@saramomtaz9395]

Thank you so much : ) very helpful videos.

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!🙂

[@victorbryan5482]

Thank you for this!

[@erinwrightwriting]

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[@acp7041]

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[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@rickmarchetti996]

Thank you so much. Your tutorials are so clear and easy to understand.

[@erinwrightwriting]

That is so kind of you to say! Thank you for watching!

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p

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it was really helpful thanks

[@erinwrightwriting]

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[@keljel9012]

Awesome! Great Job......Thanks.......

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@apurbanandi9175]

Thank you so much!

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@rexss90]

Thank you! I'm attending college online and honestly was losing points on writing assignments because I wasn't indenting paragraphs. This helps so much.

[@erinwrightwriting]

I'm so glad that it helped! I wish you all the best with your assignments!

[@lakhwinderkaur1901]

You are best. Thanks

[@erinwrightwriting]

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[@linuxbodyguy]

Thank you, awesome lady.

[@erinwrightwriting]

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[@JLvatron]

Thanks!

[@erinwrightwriting]

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[@choeurnthailong6433]

Great! Thanks . Love u😘

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@Sidd-pw1ez]

Excellently Presented... Thank you.. I was able to understand soo easily🥰

[@erinwrightwriting]

I am so happy to hear that. Thank you for watching! 😊

[@euphoria8906]

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@ridhichhabra1914]

Thank you so much:)

[@erinwrightwriting]

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[@LifeInBonitaSprings]

Thank you!

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@LifeInBonitaSprings]

This book is working me but it is going to the editor within 48 hrs, damn it. 😂

[@xcslv910]

Thank you so much

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@azraadhikari2219]

Thanks , it was really helpful

[@erinwrightwriting]

I'm glad it was helpful. Thank you for watching!

[@tish-annbailey5124]

thank you for this video

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@nnsh3]

Thankyou very much 😊🌷

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! 😊

[@adityaawasthi6090]

Thanks a lot madam, tomorrow is my skill test for Administrative Assistant post and it is really-rally very helpful.

[@erinwrightwriting]

Good luck! Thank you for watching!

[@akanibaone7082]

Thank you

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@charliefung5574]

Thank you! I couldn't find the ruler feature and was going crazy

[@erinwrightwriting]

I'm glad you found the information you were looking for! Thank you for watching!

[@sonyalimbong4662]

OMG Thank you so mucchhhhh....

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@yiselloro8266]

Thank you it helped me a lot.

[@erinwrightwriting]

I'm happy it helped. Thank you for watching!

[@Dude-dx5ns]

May God bless you.

[@erinwrightwriting]

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thank uuuuuu❤شكرا

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@dee.mellow]

Thank you,solved my problem.

[@erinwrightwriting]

I am happy to hear that! Thank you for watching!

[@pakistaniart4666]

Thanks

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@masscommunication7625]

Thanks for this. Just used this video to help me with MSW paragraph indentation as suggested by my professor in Nigeria.

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! I wish you all the best with your studies!

[@Yemumo]

You are THE BESTTTTTTT😭

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you so much!

[@Cherry.2273]

I love you , you have solved a major problem of mine , you're amazing

[@erinwrightwriting]

You are very kind! I wish you all the best with your Word document!

[@frankatondo]

@erin wright You are a beast!

[@erinwrightwriting]

I will take that as a compliment.😊 Thank you for watching!

[@germanymcg7491]

Great information: Thank you. Another way to indent an entire paper on iPhone or iPad, using Microsoft Word, is a piece o cake as well. 1) Click on the original document, and hit “select all.” 2) With the document highlighted, go to the “A over pencil” symbol to the left of the keyboard symbol. 3) Click “ A/pencil” and go to “Paragraph Formatting.” 4) Hit “Special Indent “ then check the second box, that reads “First Line.” The first line of of each paragraph should now be correctly indented. Each paragraph is identified When you used a “hard return” in writing your original document. I wrote a 188 page manuscript and used hard returns for each new paragraph but failed to indent each paragraph, thinking it would be easy later. And it was easy. Now, while editing your paper, you can merely hit the hard return and your new paragraph will be automatically indented.

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching and sharing your technique for Word for the iPhone or iPad!

[@d.karenminiel413]

You short video is the better one available on paragraphs indents as you do show the three ways to indent them. Thank you. However, by leaving the indent at .8, students will indent their paragraphs .8 rather than .5.

[@SatyamGupta-mp2tm]

Very useful 👍👍

[@erinwrightwriting]

Glad to hear it. Thank you for watching!

[@razmohammad423]

Excellent mam, thanks for work

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you so much!

[@kamleshkarwasra]

1000th like is mine 👌👍👍👍 Really helpful 🤟

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you very much!👍

[@hussainbhat7273]

I appreciate you You understand this very easily But also in Ctrl +M

[@palchetangsoodo]

I want to indent lines other than the first line using Tab but I do not want the Hanging Indent to turn on.

[@katiewcarr]

Thanks for this - it's really well explained, but I can't get it to work! I'm writing a novel and want to set up a template (Word 2016) which will automatically indent the first line of each para.; pretty straightforward and common practice. I've followed your instructions and all seems fine - until I want to remove the indent for the first para of each chapter. I do this by putting the cursor at the start of the para and pressing the backspace key, and it works - but it seems to remove the formatting for all future paras, and when I go back to the paragraph box, the 'special' first line option has been wiped and I have to set it all over again.Please...how can I format a document to retain the para indent throughout while I'm working on it but alllow me to adjust individual paras as needed? Thank you!

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! I am sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your indents. One way to manually remove the indent from an individual paragraph is to select the entire paragraph and then slide the First Line Indent tab on the ruler. Best of luck!

[@DustyEmerald704z]

needed this for my n levels revision. thx

[@erinwrightwriting]

Great, thank you for watching!

[@sanjibbiswas1140]

Thanks mam it helped me very much

[@erinwrightwriting]

I am delighted to hear that. Thank you for watching!

[@carolinelatham3925]

Thank you for the tab key and the ruler BUT I am trying to write a script on the latest word system and am writing a script- this means I have the name of who is speaking on the left and then need the dialogue in the middle- when I do it it doesn't seem to work for three lines at once and I'm basically going mad trying to work it out! your help would be much appreciated!!!

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching my video about indents. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what is causing your issue with the three lines. However, I would recommend a tab for your dialog. I have another video that discusses tabs in more detail: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gXy2qoqqjtWVfbM. Best of luck!

[@domingoborlainjr9015]

100%helpfull

[@domingoborlainjr9015]

Helpful

[@erinwrightwriting]

I'm so glad to hear that! Thank you for watching!

[@adobemastr]

Erin, I'm running version 16.16.27 (201012) on my Mac. At 1:13, you begin by having us select "Home," then place the cursor in a paragraph, then, at 1:23 you have us go to the right of the screen and choose "Select." But there is no such option on my screen to do this, nor can I see the "Find" or "Replace" selections either. Thus, I cannot perform virtually anything in your video that you are showing me which means I cannot set the indent on my paragraphs (except by hitting the "Tab" button each time I begin a new paragraph) so that each time I begin a new paragraph the indent is already preset. Now, each time I begin a new paragraph, I have to first hit the "Tab" to set the indent. Any ideas on how to solve this? Thanks.

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! Unfortunately, these steps aren't for Word for Mac because Word for Mac doesn't have a "Select All Text with Similar Formatting" option. The easiest way to indent paragraphs on a Mac is to select one of the paragraphs, select Home > Styles Pane > Select All. Then, Control-click > Paragraph. You can then select "First line" in the Special menu in the Paragraph dialog box. Best of luck!

[@adobemastr]

@@erinwrightwriting Thanks for responding, Erin. That's a complicated workaround. Let's say I want to create a brand new document and I want all the paragraphs I might decide to write in this document to be indented when I hit the return key on my Mac to begin a brand new paragraph WITHOUT having to hit the "Tab" key or use your workaround at the very end of the document. Is there a way to program this? Thanks again.

[@thilaksayila8993]

Thank you madam

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@simonight6680]

Thank you so much for your information and help. ❤️❤️❤️ Could you please make a video on how to have an active account on office or Microsoft so that we can have it for free? Thank you again

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! Microsoft normally doesn't offer free subscriptions to Microsoft 365; however, if you check the Microsoft website, they do offer free trials from time to time. Best of luck!

[@ellonysman]

Hi Erin. One video told me to find in win10 wordpad, go to file, scroll down to options....I went on my home windows ten and it says nothing about options. Why would that not show? An older version of win10 perhaps?? This drives me nuts. Hard learning at 66 y.o. Grrrrrrr! Thanks a lot.

[@erinwrightwriting]

Hi, Rick. I think the other tutorial you watched might be out of date because when I open Wordpad, I don't see an Options under the File tab, either. (Please note that my videos are about Word, not Wordpad.). Best of luck!

[@1NicholasInSeattle]

Hey Erin, well done, thanks. But there's something I'm trying to figure out with the formatting additionally. How to set the First Paragraph with NO INDENT, and then thee indents begin in the second paragraph throughout the prose or pages. How do I do that? *smiles softly!*curious look!* Thanks kindly for your help. Nick

[@erinwrightwriting]

That's a great question, Nick! I'm not aware of a way to have no indent on the first paragraph of every page without doing it manually because all of Word's formatting is meant to flow as content is added or removed, so the software anticipates that paragraphs will shift locations. However, I *think* you can create that type of automatic page-level formatting in InDesign. Best of luck!

[@1NicholasInSeattle]

@@erinwrightwriting Hey Erin, thanks for getting back to me so quickly! You're awesome! :--)) I may have to try that in Design. Right now I'm battling with figuring out how to begin my Header Statements later in the book also. I'm here to see what I can find. SOlved my PAGE NUMBERS landing on a desired page. Thank goodness. :--)) A writer's works are clearly never ending! Kindly always, Nick

[@1NicholasInSeattle]

@@erinwrightwriting Hi Erin, I decided to have no indents. I hope my readers won't be too upset about that. Thanks kindly for getting back to me! :--)) Blessings!

[@erinwrightwriting]

@@1NicholasInSeattle You are very welcome! I wish you all the best with your project!

[@1NicholasInSeattle]

@@erinwrightwriting Hey Erin, thanks so much. Covers are being worked on now, and I'm giving it a once more over. No indents for first lines per paragraph. I've decided against it for this one. Blessings! Kindly Nicholas

[@HamzasaeedKhan]

When is it necessary to use "Tab" in paragraphs, and whether all paragraphs or simply those that follow the heading (first) paragraph?

[@erinwrightwriting]

That is a great question! The choice to indent all paragraphs or only the first paragraph after a header will depend on the style guide (e.g., APA, Chicago, in-house, etc.) you are following. Thank you for watching!

[@Krishna-xu7ou]

Can you make a video to show difference between ms word 2003 and latest version. Thank you.

[@Krishna-xu7ou]

Nice video this one thanks

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching my video. I don't have a copy of Word 2003, so I'm afraid I can't make a comparison video for you. However, I do believe the current version of Word is much more efficient and worth the upgrade. Best of luck!

[@rubenpalma4045]

Great video. In my case it doesn't work: 1) The ruler is visible. 2) The text to intend is marked 3) Once I move the ruler the whole text follows - absolutely all lines of the text move according to the movement in the ruler. ---- there is no distinction between the first lines of the paragraph (those to indent) and all the others. ---- Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks.

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! Are you selecting specific text before trying to indent the first line? If so, you may want to just place your cursor at the start of the line you want to indent rather than selecting it and then move the top triangle marker on the ruler. I hope that helps!

[@rubenpalma4045]

@@erinwrightwriting Thanks so much for your kind answer. I could not at all indent using the ruler. Every time the highlighted or not highlighted text (and all its pages and lines) moved as a single block. But... using the paragraph dialog box solved the problem perfectly. Thanks again and congratulations for the good work!

[@manbirsingh576]

Thanks for video. Your voice is so sweet to ears.

[@erinwrightwriting]

That is very kind of you to say. Thank you for watching!

[@manbirsingh576]

@@erinwrightwriting you deserve infinite praising. Keep it up

[@MackAlton]

So sometimes I hit tab and it shifts the entire document over not just the first lime of the paragraph . What can I do?

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! There are several issues that can cause that irritating problem. I don't have a tutorial about that issue, but here is an article from Tip.net that you might find helpful: wordribbon.tips.net/T007352_Controlling_Automatic_Indenting.html. Best of luck!

[@BankoleAyodeleMEG]

Me 21 secs into the video: got it!

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching...even for 21 seconds. 🙂

[@prasantaraut7614]

😘😘😘😘❤️❤️❤️👍👍👍

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@aby897]

Maa'm by default which indent is activated

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! The default indent is .5 inch.

[@dan_gabriel]

Is not working, the first letter always is before the desired indentation

[@erinwrightwriting]

I am sorry to hear that it isn't working for you. You may want to ensure that your cursor is placed in front of the first letter before setting the indentation. I wish you all the best!

[@kallekallenen4346]

Unfortunately this doesnt explain how to get the paragraph in the first place. I press tab but it moves ALL the text. I hate word, its so cumbersome. I've been trying to write here and for two hours trying to figure out how to not move all text when pressing tab but the single line that I want to make a paragraph....Why is this not automatic???+

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching! Press the Enter key instead of the Tab key to create the next paragraph.

[@hanahlilyan7201]

Thanks!

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!

[@kotka7203]

Thanks

[@erinwrightwriting]

Thank you for watching!