Turn off paragraph indenting

[Gordon]

I have a sentence that wraps onto the next line. I want to indent the second
line part. When I put my cursor before the word and press Tab, it indents
the top line as well. How do I turn off this ridiculous default setting? I
just want the indent to apply to the line I am on, not the paragraph.(Word
2003)

 

[Stefan Blom]

To set a hanging indent, you can press Ctrl+M. If you want more
control, choose Format | Paragraph. Click the Indents and Spacing tab.
Under "Indentation," choose "Hanging" in the "Special" box, and
specify the desired value.

Note that you can create a style with this setting, if you need to
apply it repeatedly within a document. For more on styles, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/TipsOnStyles.html.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:%[email protected]...

 

[CyberTaz]

What you want is called a "Hanging Indent" & isn't to be had by the Tab key.
It's a paragraph formatting attribute which can be applied in a few ways:

1- With your insertion point in the paragraph drag the *lower* triangle
marker at the left end of the ruler bar to the spot you want to indent to.
The first line will remain flush left but the rest of the lines will be
indented, or

2- While in the paragraph go to Format>Paragraph - Indents & Spacing, open
the list labeled Special in the Indentation section, choose "Hanging" &
specify a value to be applied.

Both of the above are just different ways to do the same thing. Once applied
the amount of indentation can be adjusted on the Ruler - you'll see the
marker move even if you use the dialog box.

The attribute can be included as a part of a Style if you are familiar with
them (which is preferable) but if you are formatting directly it's better to
*not* apply the changes to a paragraph until you're done. Otherwise those
changes carry on to the next paragraph & you have to change the settings
back again.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Bill Ridgeway]

I have a sentence that wraps onto the next line. I want to indent the
second line part. When I put my cursor before the word and press Tab, it
indents the top line as well. How do I turn off this ridiculous default
setting? I just want the indent to apply to the line I am on, not the
paragraph.(Word 2003)

If you haven't set up tab points when you press tab, text is tabbed to the
next default tab point.

It's far better to set up tabs manually. In that way you have far more
control over what is happening to the presentation of you document. To set
up a tab -
highlight the text (or whole page) to be changed
select the type of tab (usually left-hand) (extreme left-side of the
ruler bar)
select the position of the tab (ruler bar)

Now for the indents. At the left hand side of the ruler bar there is a
downwards point 'arrow' and an upwards pointing 'arrow' with a small square
underneath. Dragging the small square along the ruler drags both arrow but
each of them can be dragged independently. Drag these to the tab point and
separate them slightly. You will see that they enable you to offset the
following lines of a paragraph either to the left or right of the start
point of the first line of the paragraph. I suggest you experiment to get
it just right for you.

You can have a number of tab points on a line so, in a simple example, you
could have a list of several columns (left tabbed) with a final column with
a price (decimal or centre tabbed). An alternative to this would be to use
a table but that is possibly another subject for another day.

I hope that is useful.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

 

[Gordon]

I have a sentence that wraps onto the next line. I want to indent the
second line part. When I put my cursor before the word and press Tab, it
indents the top line as well. How do I turn off this ridiculous default
setting? I just want the indent to apply to the line I am on, not the
paragraph.(Word 2003)

Don't think I explained properly! I have a sentence such as below:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog who then got up and bit the cat
that
then jumped over the garden wall

What I want to do is this:

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog who then got up and bit the cat
that
then jumped over the garden wall

If I place my Cursor just in front of the "then" in the second row and press
Tab, I get this:

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog who then got up and bit the
cat that
then jumped over the garden wall

I don't want the top row to move. There USED to be a way to turn off this
totally unintuitive behaviour but I can't find it.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Correction: The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+T, not Ctrl+M (which sets a
left indent).

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Stefan Blom]

Well, a hanging indent indents all lines but the first. If you are
saying that you want to indent *only* the second line (not the first,
and not lines three, four, five, etc.), you can press Enter before and
after line two to put it in a separate paragraph, and then apply a
left indent.

Alternatively, you can use an ADVANCE field at the beginning of the
second line to push it to the right. For example: { ADVANCE \r 20 }
moves that line 20 pt to the right. To insert the field, press Ctrl+F9
to insert field delimiters, { }. Type the code as shown, and press F9
to update.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Gordon]

Well, a hanging indent indents all lines but the first. If you are
saying that you want to indent *only* the second line (not the first,
and not lines three, four, five, etc.), you can press Enter before and
after line two to put it in a separate paragraph, and then apply a
left indent.

Alternatively, you can use an ADVANCE field at the beginning of the
second line to push it to the right. For example: { ADVANCE \r 20 }
moves that line 20 pt to the right. To insert the field, press Ctrl+F9
to insert field delimiters, { }. Type the code as shown, and press F9
to update.

eeek! Thanks for that - but I think I've found it. In Tools-Autocorrect
Options-"Autoformat as you Type". At the bottom, uncheck "set left- and
first-indent with tabs and backspaces". That seems to have fixed it.....

 

[Stefan Blom]

in message

eeek! Thanks for that - but I think I've found it. In
Tools-Autocorrect
Options-"Autoformat as you Type". At the bottom, uncheck "set left-
and
first-indent with tabs and backspaces". That seems to have fixed
it.....

Well, I'm glad you found a solution. (If you wanted to keep the "Set
left- and first-indent..." option checked, you could have used
Ctrl+Tab to insert the tabs.)

But note that tab characters within a paragraph are part of the text
flow. If you edit the text, they might move to a different line.

Keeping the text in different paragraphs seems like the best long-term
solution. Of course, this depends on what exactly you are trying to
accomplish...

 

[Bill Ridgeway]

eeek! Thanks for that - but I think I've found it. In Tools-Autocorrect
Options-"Autoformat as you Type". At the bottom, uncheck "set left- and
first-indent with tabs and backspaces". That seems to have fixed it.....

Just be aware of Autoanything. It can lull you into a false sense of
security that everything is OK until one day you'll going wonder "Why the
heck is it doing that?" I keep Autoanything OFF. I like to be master of my
own document.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

 

[Terry Farrell]

Well once a user knows what the AutoXXX is doing for him/her, they can
actually be very useful. The problem is that most new users don't know about
AutoAnything so when strange quirky things happen it leads to posts like
this one. But once you have learnt about them and how to control them and
put them to use, they are good for productivity.