IN THIS CHAPTER

Starting new lines, sections, and pages

Changing margins and page indents

Numbering pages and handling headers and footers

Handling bulleted and numbered lists

This chapter explains how to format text and pages. A well-laid-out document says a lot about how much time and thought was put into it. This chapter presents tips, tricks, and techniques for making pages look just right.

In this chapter, you learn what section breaks are and why they are so important to formatting. You discover how to establish the size of margins, indent text, number pages, construct headers and footers, determine how much space appears between lines of text, handle lists, and hyphenate text.

Paragraphs and Formatting

Back in English class, your teacher taught you that a paragraph is a part of a longer composition that presents one idea or, in the case of dialogue, presents the words of one speaker. Your teacher was right, too, but for word-processing purposes, a paragraph is a lot less than that. In word processing, a paragraph is simply what you put onscreen before you press the Enter key.

For instance, a heading is a paragraph. If you press Enter on a blank line to go to the next line, the blank line is considered a paragraph. If you type Dear John at the top of a letter and press Enter, “Dear John” is a paragraph.

Knowing what Word considers to be a paragraph is important because paragraphs have a lot to do with formatting. If you click the Paragraph group button on the Home tab and monkey around with the paragraph formatting in the Paragraph dialog box, your changes affect everything in the paragraph where the cursor is located. To make format changes to a whole paragraph, all you have to do is place the cursor there. You don’t have to select the paragraph. And if you want to make format changes to several paragraphs, simply select those paragraphs first.

Inserting a Section Break for Formatting Purposes

When you want to change page numbering schemes, headers and footers, margin sizes, and page orientations in a document, you have to create a section break to start a new section. Word creates a new section for you when you create newspaper-style columns or change the size of margins.

Follow these steps to create a new section:

1. Click where you want to insert a section break.

2. On the Layout tab, click the Breaks button.

   You open a drop-down list.

3. Under Section Breaks on the drop-down list, select a section break.

Figure 2-1 shows what the different section breaks look like in Draft view. All four section break options create a new section, but they do so in different ways:

• Next Page: Inserts a page break as well as a section break so that the new section can start at the top of a new page (the next one). Select this option to start a new chapter, for example.
• Continuous: Inserts a section break in the middle of a page. Select this option if, for example, you want to introduce newspaper-style columns in the middle of a page.
• Even Page: Starts the new section on the next even page. This option is good for two-sided documents in which the headers on the left- and right-side pages are different.
• Odd Page: Starts the new section on the next odd page. You might choose this option if you have a book in which chapters start on odd pages. (By convention, that’s where they start.)

To delete a section break, make sure that you are in Draft view so that you can see section breaks, click the dotted line, and press the Delete key.

In the same way that paragraph marks store formats for a paragraph, section breaks store formats for an entire section. When you delete a section break, you apply new formats, because the section is folded into the section that formerly followed it and the section you deleted adopts that next section’s formats. Because it’s easy to accidentally delete a section break and create havoc, I recommend working in Draft view when your document has many section breaks. In Draft view, you can tell where a section ends because Section Break and a double dotted line appear onscreen. The only way to tell where a section ends in Print Layout view is to click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Home tab. (You can make section information appear on the status bar. Right-click the status bar and choose Section on the pop-up menu.)

Breaking a Line

To break a line of text before it reaches the right margin without starting a new paragraph, press Shift+Enter. Figure 2-2 shows how you can press Shift+Enter to make lines break better. The paragraphs are identical, but I broke lines in the right-side paragraph to make the text easier to read. Line breaks are marked with the ↲ symbol. To erase line breaks, click the Show/Hide ¶ button to see these symbols and then backspace over them.

Starting a New Page

Word gives you another page so that you can keep going when you fill up one page. But what if you’re impatient and want to start a new page right away? Whatever you do, don’t press Enter again and again until you fill up the page. Instead, create a hard page break by doing one the following on the Insert tab:

• Click the Page Break button (or press Ctrl+Enter). Word starts a new page at the cursor position. (You can also go to the Layout tab, click the Breaks button, and choose Page on the drop-down list.)
• Click the Blank Page button. Word enters two hard page breaks to create an empty, blank page at the cursor position.

Figure 2-3 shows, in Draft view, the difference between a soft page break and a hard page break. Word inserts a soft page break when the page is full and another page is needed; only you can create a hard page break. In Draft view, soft page breaks are marked with a dotted line; hard page breaks are marked with the words Page Break and a dotted line. You can tell where hard page breaks are in Print Layout and Draft view by clicking the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Home tab.

To delete a hard page break, switch to Draft view (or click the Show/Hide ¶ button), double-click the words Page Break, and press the Delete key.

Setting Up and Changing the Margins

Margins are the empty spaces along the left, right, top, and bottom of a page, as shown in Figure 2-4. Headers and footers fall, respectively, in the top and bottom margins. And you can put graphics, text boxes, and page numbers in the margins as well. Margins serve to frame the text and make it easier to read.

When you start a new document, give a moment's thought to the margins. Changing the size of margins after you have entered the text, graphics, and whatnot can be disastrous. Text is indented from the left and right margins. Pages break on the bottom margin. If you change margin settings, indents and page breaks change for good or ill throughout your document. By setting the margins carefully from the beginning, you can rest assured that text will land on the page where you want it to land.

Don’t confuse margins with indents. Text is indented from the margin, not from the edge of the page. If you want to change how far text falls from the page edge, indent it. To change margin settings in the middle of a document, you have to create a new section.

To set up or change the margins, go to the Layout tab and click the Margins button. You see a drop-down list with margin settings. Either choose a setting or select Custom Margins to open the Margins tab of the Page Setup dialog box and choose among these commands for handling margins:

• Changing the size of the margins: Enter measurements in the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right boxes to tell Word how much blank space to put along the sides of the page.
• Making room for the gutter: The gutter is the part of the paper that the binding eats into when you bind a document. Enter a measurement in the Gutter box to increase the left or inside margin and make room for the binding. Notice on the pages of this book, for example, that the margin closest to the binding is wider than the outside margin. Choose Top on the Gutter Position menu if you intend to bind your document from the top, not the left, or inside, of the page. Some legal documents are bound this way.
• Using mirror margins (inside and outside margins) in two-sided documents: In a bound document in which text is printed on both sides of the pages, the terms left margin and right margin are meaningless. What matters instead is in the inside margin, which is the margin in the middle of the page spread next to the bindings, and the outside margin, which is the margin on the outside of the page spread that isn’t affected by the bindings (refer to Figure 2-4). Choose Mirror Margins on the Multiple Pages drop-down list and adjust the margins accordingly if you intend to print on both sides of the paper.
• Applying margin changes: On the Apply To drop-down list, choose Whole Document to apply your margin settings to the entire document; choose This Section to apply them to a section; or choose This Point Forward to change margins in the rest of a document. When you choose This Point Forward, Word creates a new section.

If you’re in a hurry to change margins, you can change them on the ruler. Display the ruler (select the Ruler check box on the View tab) and drag the Left Margin, Right Margin, or Top Margin marker. You can find these markers by moving the pointer onto a ruler and looking for the two-headed arrow near a margin boundary. It appears, along with a pop-up label, when the pointer is over a margin marker.

To get a good look at where margins are, go to the File tab and choose Options. In the Word Options dialog box, select the Advanced category, and click the Show Text Boundaries check box (you find it under “Show Document Content”).

Indenting Paragraphs and First Lines

An indent is the distance between a margin and the text, not the edge of the page and the text. Word offers a handful of ways to change the indentation of paragraphs. You can change the indentation of first lines as well as entire paragraphs. To start, select all or part of the paragraphs you want to re-indent (just click in a paragraph if you want to re-indent only one paragraph). Then click an Indent button, fiddle with the indentation marks on the ruler, or go to the Paragraph dialog box. All three techniques are described here.

“Eyeballing” it with the ruler

You can also change indentations by using the ruler to “eyeball” it. This technique requires some dexterity with the mouse or your finger, but it allows you to see precisely where paragraphs and the first lines of paragraphs are indented. If necessary, display the ruler by going to the View tab and clicking the Ruler check box. Then click in or select the paragraph or paragraphs that need indenting and use these techniques to re-indent them:

• Indenting an entire paragraph from the left margin: Drag the left-indent marker on the ruler to the right. Figure 2-5 shows where this marker is located. Dragging the left-indent marker moves the first-line indent marker as well.
• Indenting the first line of a paragraph: Drag the first-line indent marker to the right (refer to Figure 2-5). This marker determines how far the first line of the paragraph is indented.
• Making a hanging indent: Drag the hanging indent marker to the right of the first-line indent marker (refer to Figure 2-5). A hanging indent is one in which the first line of a paragraph appears to “hang” into the left margin because the second and subsequent lines are indented to the right of the start of the first line. Bulleted and numbered lists employ hanging indents.
• Indenting an entire paragraph from the right margin: Drag the right-indent marker to the left (refer to Figure 2-5).

Notice the shaded areas on the left and right side of the ruler. These areas represent the page margins.

Numbering the Pages

How do you want to number the pages in your document? You can number them in sequence starting with the number 1, start numbering pages with a number other than 1, use Roman numerals or other number formats, and include chapter numbers in page numbers. What’s more, you can number the pages differently in each section of your document as long as you divided your document into sections.

When it comes to numbering pages, you can proceed in two ways, as shown in Figure 2-6:

• Put a page number by itself on the pages of your document.
• Include the page number in the header or footer.

After you enter a page number, you can format it in different ways in the Page Number Format dialog box (refer to Figure 2-6) and (Header & Footer Tools) Design tab.

To handle page numbers (as well as headers and footers), you must be in Print Layout view. Click the Print Layout view button on the status bar or go to the View tab and click the Print Layout button.

Putting Headers and Footers on Pages

A header is a little description that appears along the top of a page so that the reader knows what’s what. Usually, headers include the page number and a title, and often the author’s name appears in the header as well. A footer is the same thing as a header except that it appears along the bottom of the page, as befits its name.

These pages explain everything a mere mortal needs to know about headers and footers. Meanwhile, here are the ground rules for managing them:

• Switching to Print Layout view: To enter, read, edit or delete headers and footers, you must be in Print Layout view. You can’t see headers and footers in the other views.
• Displaying the (Header & Footer Tools) Design tab: As shown in Figure 2-7, you manage headers and footers by way of buttons on the (Header & Footer Tools) Design tab. To display this tab after you create a header or footer, switch to Print Layout view and double-click a header or footer.
• Closing the (Header & Footer Tools) Design tab: Click the Close Header and Footer button or double-click outside the header or footer.
• Placing different headers and footers in the same document: To change headers or footers in the middle of a document, you have to create a new section. See “Inserting a Section Break for Formatting Purposes,” earlier in this chapter.

Adjusting the Space between Lines

To change the spacing between lines, select the lines whose spacing you want to change, or simply put the cursor in a paragraph if you’re changing the line spacing throughout a paragraph. (If you’re just starting a document, you’re ready to go.) Then, on the Home tab, click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button and choose an option on the drop-down list.

To take advantage of more line-spacing options, open the Paragraph dialog box, as shown in Figure 2-8. Use either of these techniques to open the Paragraph dialog box:

• Go to the Home tab or Layout tab and click the Paragraph group button.
• On the Home tab, click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button and choose Line Spacing Options on the drop-down list.

Besides single-, 1.5-, and double-spacing, the Paragraph dialog box offers these Line Spacing options:

• At Least: Choose this one if you want Word to adjust for tall symbols or other unusual text. Word adjusts the lines but makes sure there is, at minimum, the number of points you enter in the At box between each line.
• Exactly: Choose this one and enter a number in the At box if you want a specific amount of space between lines.
• Multiple: Choose this one and put a number in the At box to get triple-spaced, quadruple-, quintuple-, or any other number of spaced lines.

To quickly single-space text, click the text or select it if you want to change more than one paragraph, and press Ctrl+1. To quickly double-space text, select the text and press Ctrl+2. Press Ctrl+5 to put one and a half lines between lines of text.

The Design tab offers a command called Paragraph Spacing for changing the overall look of paragraphs. Click the Paragraph Spacing button and choose an option on the drop-down list to make paragraphs and lines of text more compact, tight, open, or relaxed.

Adjusting the Space between Paragraphs

Rather than press Enter to put a blank line between paragraphs, you can open the Paragraph dialog box and enter a point-size measurement in the Before or After text box (see Figure 2-8). The Before and After measurements place a specific amount of space before and after paragraphs.

Truth be told, the Before and After options are for use with styles (a subject of the next chapter). When you create a style, you can tell Word to always follow a paragraph in a certain style with a paragraph in another style. For example, a paragraph in the Chapter Title style might always be followed by a paragraph in the Chapter Intro style. In cases like these, when you know that paragraphs assigned to one type of style will always follow paragraphs assigned to another style, you can confidently put space before and after paragraphs. But if you use the Before and After styles indiscriminately, you can end up with large blank spaces between paragraphs.

Go to the Home tab and use one of these techniques to adjust the amount of space between paragraphs:

• Click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button and choose Add Space Before Paragraph or Add Space After Paragraph on the drop-down list. These commands place 10 points of blank space before or after the paragraph that the cursor is in.
• Click the Paragraph group button to open the Paragraph dialog box (see Figure 2-8), and enter point-size measurements in the Before and After boxes (or choose Auto in these boxes to enter one blank line between paragraphs in whatever your line-spacing choice is). The Don’t Add Space Between Paragraphs of the Same Style check box tells Word to ignore Before and After measurements if the previous or next paragraph is assigned the same style as the paragraph that the cursor is in.

Creating Numbered and Bulleted Lists

What is a word-processed document without a list or two? It’s like an emperor with no clothes. Numbered lists are invaluable in manuals and books like this one that present a lot of step-by-step procedures. Use bulleted lists when you want to present alternatives to the reader. A bullet is a black, filled-in circle or other character. These pages explain numbered lists, bulleted lists, and multilevel lists.

Constructing lists of your own

If you’re an individualist and you want numbered and bulleted lists to work your way, follow these instructions for choosing unusual bullet characters and number formats:

• Choosing a different numbering scheme: On the Home tab, open the drop-down list on the Numbering button and choose a numbering scheme. You can also choose Define New Number Format. As shown in Figure 2-9, you see the Define New Number Format dialog box, where you can choose a number format, choose a font for numbers, and toy with number alignments.
• Choosing a different bullet character: On the Home tab, open the drop-down list on the Bullets button and choose a different bullet character on the drop-down list. You can also choose Define New Bullet to open the Define New Bullet dialog box, shown in Figure 2-9, and click the Symbol button to choose a bullet character in the Symbol dialog box (Book 1, Chapter 2 describes symbols). The dialog box also offers opportunities for indenting bullets and the text that follows them in unusual ways.

Managing a multilevel list

A multilevel list, also called a nested list, is a list with subordinate entries, as shown in Figure 2-10. To create a multilevel list, you declare what kind of list you want, and then, as you enter items for the list, you indent the items that you want to be subordinate. Follow these steps to create a multilevel list:

1. On the Home tab, click the Multilevel List button and choose what kind of list you want.

   If none of the lists suit you, you can choose Define New Multilevel List and create a new kind of list in the Define New Multilevel List dialog box.

2. Enter the items for the list, pressing Enter as you complete each one.

3. Select a list item (or items) and click the Increase Indent button (or press Ctrl+M) to make the items subordinate in the list; click the Decrease Indent button (or press Ctrl+Shift+M) to raise their rank in the list.

   Repeat Step 3 until the list is just so.

Working with Tabs

Tabs are a throwback to the days of the typewriter, when it was necessary to make tab stops in order to align text. Except for making leaders and aligning text in headers and footers, everything you can do with tabs can also be done by creating a table — and it can be done far faster. All you have to do is align the text inside the table and then remove the table borders. (Chapter 4 of this minibook explains tables.)

A tab stop is a point around which or against which text is formatted. As shown in Figure 2-11, Word offers five tab types for aligning text: Left, Center, Right, Decimal, and Bar (a bar tab stop merely draws a vertical line on the page). When you press the Tab key, you advance the text cursor by one tab stop. Tab stops are shown on the ruler; symbols on the ruler tell you what type of tab you’re dealing with.

By default, tabs are left-aligned and are set at half-inch intervals. Display the ruler (click the Ruler check box on the View tab) and follow these steps to change tabs or change where tabs appear on the ruler:

1. Select the paragraphs that need different tab settings.

2. Click the Tab box on the left side of the ruler as many times as necessary to choose the kind of tab you want.

   Symbols on the tab box indicate which type of tab you’re choosing.

3. Click the ruler where you want the tab to go.

   You can click as many times as you want and enter more than one kind of tab.

To move a tab stop, drag it to a new location on the ruler. Text that is aligned with the tab stop moves as well. To remove a tab stop, drag it off the ruler. When you remove a tab stop, text to which it was aligned is aligned to the next remaining tab stop on the ruler, or to the next default tab stop if you didn’t create any tab stops of your own.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell where tabs were put in the text. To find out, click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Home tab to see the formatting characters, including the arrows that show where the Tab key was pressed.

Hyphenating Text

The first thing you should know about hyphenating words is that you may not need to do it. Text that hasn’t been hyphenated is much easier to read, which is why the majority of text in this book, for example, isn’t hyphenated. It has a ragged right margin, to borrow typesetter lingo. Hyphenate only when text is trapped in columns or in other narrow places, or when you want a very formal-looking document.

Do not insert a hyphen simply by pressing the hyphen key, because the hyphen will stay there even if the word moves to the middle of a line and doesn't need to be broken in half. Instead, when a big gap appears in the right margin and a word is crying out to be hyphenated, put the cursor where the hyphen needs to go and press Ctrl+hyphen. This way, you enter what is called a discretionary hyphen, and the hyphen appears only if the word breaks at the end of a line. (To remove a discretionary hyphen, press the Show/Hide ¶ button so that you can see it, and then backspace over it.)

Automatically and manually hyphenating a document

Select text if you want to hyphenate part of a document, not all of it, and use one of these techniques to hyphenate words that break on the end of a line of text:

• Automatic hyphenation: On the Layout tab, click the Hyphenation button and choose Automatic on the drop-down list. Word hyphenates your document (or a portion of your document, if you selected it first).

  You can tell Word how to hyphenate automatically by clicking the Hyphenation button and choosing Hyphenation Options. You see the Hyphenation dialog box shown in Figure 2-12. Deselect the Hyphenate Words in CAPS check box if you don't care to hyphenate words in uppercase. Words that fall in the hyphenation zone are hyphenated, so enlarging the hyphenation zone means a less ragged right margin but more ugly hyphens, and a small zone means fewer ugly hyphens but a more ragged right margin. You can limit how many hyphens appear consecutively by entering a number in the Limit Consecutive Hyphens To box.

• Manual hyphenation: On the Layout tab, click the Hyphenation button and choose Manual on the drop-down list. Word displays a box with some hyphenation choices in it, as shown in Figure 2-12. The cursor blinks on the spot where Word suggests putting a hyphen. Click Yes or No to accept or reject Word’s suggestion. Keep accepting or rejecting Word’s suggestions until the text is hyphenated.