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How to Indent a Whole Paragraph in Word 2013

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2016-03-26 15:33:22
Word 2010 For Dummies
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Word 2013 allows you to indent every line of a paragraph, by moving the paragraph's left margin over to the right a notch, just like Mr. Bunny: Hop, hop, hop. This technique is popular for typing block quotes or nested paragraphs.

To indent a paragraph one tab stop from the left, click the Increase Indent command button in the Home tab's Paragraph group or press Ctrl+M.

To unindent an indented paragraph, click the Decrease Indent command button in the Home tab's Paragraph group or press Ctrl+Shift+M.

Each time you use the Increase Indent command, the paragraph's left edge hops over one tab stop (typically, one half-inch). To undo this and shuffle the paragraph back to the left, use the Decrease Indent command.

When you want to get specific, you can set the left and right indents for a paragraph by using the Page Layout tab's Paragraph group or the Paragraph dialog box. The Left item sets the indentation of the paragraph's left edge. The Right item sets the indentation of the paragraph's right edge.

  • Indenting a paragraph doesn’t affect the paragraph's alignment.

  • To indent both the left and right sides of a paragraph, set both left and right indents to the same value.

  • To undo any paragraph indenting, set both Left and Right indent values to 0.

  • Setting positive values for the paragraph’s indent in the Page Layout tab’s Paragraph group moves the paragraph’s edges inward. Setting negative values moves the edges outward. When the values are set to 0, the paragraph's margins match the page's margin.

  • You cannot decrease the indent beyond the left margin of the page.

  • Do not try to mix left and right indenting with a first-line indent or hanging indent while drowsy or while operating heavy equipment.

About This Article

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About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.