Changing Paragraph Formatting
Word lets you change the indenting and spacing of paragraphs. Word also gives you control on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis over whether to keep entire paragraphs together or to force one paragraph to "stick to" the next, so they both appear on the same page.
The key concept: Paragraph formatting is stored in the paragraph mark. When you copy or move a paragraph mark, the formatting goes with it. When you delete a paragraph mark, the new paragraph takes on the formatting of the deleted paragraph mark.
Tip from 
It's almost impossible to tell whether you've selected a paragraph mark unless you have paragraph marks showing on the screen. Many advanced Word users won't even look at a document unless paragraph marks and tabs are showing. To make them appear, click Tools, Options, and on the View tab check the Tab Characters box and the Paragraph Marks box.
To restore default paragraph formatting—that is, the formatting mandated by the para graph's style—select the paragraph and click the style name on the Styles and Formatting task pane.
Adjusting Paragraph Alignment and Outline Level
Word includes simple tools for aligning your paragraphs to the left, center, right, or "justifying" to both left and right margins. If you click inside a paragraph, or select one or more paragraphs, and click Format, Paragraph (or right-click and select Paragraph), you'll get the Paragraph dialog box shown in Figure 15.10. Set the Alignment box to reflect the alignment you like.
Figure 15.10. Use the Paragraph dialog box to set a paragraph's relative outlining level, for both Outline View and Document Map. Body Text is the lowest level; Level 1 is the highest.
→ Word helps you navigate through large documents by using headings. To learn more, see "Outline View," and "Navigating with the Document Map".
Equivalently, you can use the Align Left, Center, Align Right, or Justify buttons on the Formatting toolbar to set alignment.
Tip from 
To justify the last line in a justified paragraph, click just before the paragraph mark, and press Shift+Enter.
Word has another text-aligning technique called "Click and type," which allows you to click anywhere on the screen and start typing text. Although it should be called "Double-click and type," the paragraph alignment part of the concept is straightforward:
If you double-click somewhere near the middle of an empty line (that is, halfway between the left and right margins), Word converts the line to Center alignment. You can tell the area is "hot" because Word puts centered lines below the usual I-beam pointer.
If you double-click somewhere near the right end of a line (that is, near the right margin), Word converts the line to right-justified. Again, you know the area is hot because Word changes the I-beam pointer so it has lines to the left.
Caution
Unless you're careful and watch the lines around the I-beam closely, Word might insert tabs and tab stops instead of changing the entire paragraph's alignment. Although the tab stops might fool a novice, paragraphs with tabs don't act like aligned paragraphs, as a few moments'work will demonstrate. This is yet another reason for showing paragraph marks and tab characters on the screen.
Indenting Paragraphs for Emphasis
You might think of it as a margin change, or a way to set off quotes or other material for emphasis. In Word terminology, an "indent" moves the left edge of a paragraph to the right, or the right edge of a paragraph to the left. The paragraph shown in Figure 15.11 has been indented on the left and the right.
Figure 15.11. In Word, an indent moves the entire left or right margin of a paragraph. To move only the first line of a paragraph to the right, use a first-line indent.
To adjust the left and/or right indent, use the Left and Right boxes of the Paragraph dialog box (refer to Figure 15.10). To change the left indent only, in half-inch increments, you can also use the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent buttons on the Formatting Toolbar.
The type of indenting you're probably accustomed to, where the first line of a paragraph gets indented, is called a first-line indent. To create a first-line indent, select the paragraphs you want to indent, choose Format, Paragraph, and select First Line in the Special box.
Tip from 
Don't indent paragraphs by typing tabs at the beginning of each paragraph. Instead, let Word do the work. If you want to indent the first line of all paragraphs in all new documents, you must change the Normal style. To do so, choose Format, Styles and Formatting. In the Styles and Formatting task pane, hover your mouse over the Normal style, and in the drop-down list, click Modify. Choose Format, Paragraph, and select First Line in the Special box. Click OK. Check the Add to Template box. Click OK, and then Apply. You might think Microsoft would make this easier, but…
The other type of indenting you'll see—where the first line juts out to the left—is called a hanging indent. Used sparingly, it's a good way to emphasize the first few words of a paragraph. (It's also common for bulleted and numbered paragraphs, which are discussed later in this chapter.) To create a hanging indent, select the paragraphs you want to indent, choose Format, Paragraph, and in the Special box select Hanging.
Adjusting Line and Paragraph Spacing
Word has controls for three kinds of spacing:
The amount of blank space before the first line of a paragraph
The amount of blank space after the last line of a paragraph
The amount of space internally, between the lines of a paragraph
The spacing between paragraphs adds up just as you would think: The "after" from the first paragraph is combined with the "before" of the second paragraph. Word ignores the "after" space if a paragraph will fit at the end of a page; but it includes the "before" space when a paragraph starts on a new page.
Internal line spacing isn't so simple:
If you set Line Spacing to Exactly (say, Exactly 12 points), Word makes the distance between all the lines in the paragraph equal to whatever measurement you choose. If you put a large character on a line—say, an 18-point character—the top of the character might be cut off.
If you set Line Spacing to Single, 1.5 lines, Double, or some other Multiple, Word calculates the distance between each line of the paragraph separately. It takes the tallest character (or graphic) on each line and adjusts to single, 1.5, or double spacing, as appropriate. If you have one 18-point character in the middle of a paragraph consisting of 12-point characters, the distance to the line containing the 18-point character will be 50% greater than the distance between the other lines.
Note
With one exception, the height of "invisible" characters—spaces, paragraph marks, tabs, and the like—is not taken into account when calculating Single, 1.5, Double, or Multiple spacing. The exception: If the paragraph is empty or contains only invisible characters, the height of those characters counts.
If you set Line Spacing to At Least (say, At Least 12 points), Word treats it the same as single spacing, but pretends at least one character of the given height is in each line.
Generally, you'll want to use Exactly spacing if you use two or more fonts in a paragraph: By setting the internal spacing to Exactly a given figure, all the lines will be equally spaced, even if the different font normally calls for more whitespace.
Controlling Page Breaks
Each paragraph can also be formatted to control the way Word breaks pages. The Line and Page Breaks tab in the Paragraph dialog box (see Figure 15.12) holds these settings:
Figure 15.12. You can control each paragraph, individually, to determine whether it flops onto a new page.
Widow/Orphan Control, when checked, keeps Word from printing widows (the last line of a paragraph all by itself at the top of a new page) and orphans (the first line of a paragraph all by itself at the bottom of a page). It's on by default.
Keep Lines Together ensures that all the lines of the paragraph appear on a single page.
Keep with Next forces Word to put this paragraph and the next paragraph on the same page.
Page Break Before makes Word start the paragraph on a new page.
Note
Word can't always follow your instructions, of course: If you format all the paragraphs in a long document to Keep with Next, the pages have to break somewhere. Word makes a valiant effort to follow your instructions but, if they're impossible, lays out the pages as best it can.
In almost all cases, you'll want to enforce widow and orphan control. If you have a paragraph in a report whose visual impact depends on the whole paragraph appearing on one page (say, a mission statement, or a quotation), you will probably want to keep the lines together. And headings should almost always be formatted Keep with Next so they don't get separated from the text they head.
Using Drop Caps for Emphasis
Drop caps add emphasis and distinction to a paragraph. Used sparingly, they make a good visual break at the beginning of major sec tions in a report. Word makes drop caps easy: Click once inside the paragraph that's to have its initial letter turned into a drop cap, and then choose Format, Drop Cap (see Figure 15.13).
Figure 15.13. Drop caps work best in decorative fonts. Fonts that you wouldn't normally use in a business report make eye-catching drops.
Some fonts are particularly well-suited to drop-cap treatment. Take a look at the Algerian font, which ships with Office, or Old English MT.
Positioning Text with Tabs
To fully understand the way tabs work in Word, you first must realize that a "tab" consists of two parts. First, there's the tab character—which, like any other character, is placed in a document when you press the Tab key. Second, there's the tab stop, which is a location, or series of locations, on the page. In Word, you set up tab stops for each paragraph, not for each line; in other words, every line in a paragraph must have identical tab stops.
Tip from 
It's nearly impossible to work with tabs unless you make them visible on the screen. To do so, choose Tools, Options to open the Options dialog box. Then check the Tab Characters box on the View tab.
When Word encounters a tab character in a document, it advances to the next defined tab stop. Tab stops come in four different varieties: left-aligned, right-aligned, centered, and decimal-aligned (which aligns numbers so the decimal point appears at the tab location). In addition, you can specify a leader character (pronounced "leeder")—a character that will appear, repeated, in the blank area leading up to the tab stop. You've no doubt seen them in tables of contents.
This is a leader of periods........<Tab stop>
When working with tabs, it's always much easier to plan on having just one line per paragraph, and one paragraph per line. You'll see how that makes a big difference in the example in the next section.
To set a tab stop, do the following:
Select the paragraph(s) you want to have the new tab stops.
Type the location of the first tab stop in the Tab Stop Position box. (The "location" is the distance from the left margin of the document to the position of the tab stop, regardless of where the left edge of the paragraph might fall.)
Note
Paragraphs start out with left-aligned tab stops every half inch. If you specify your own tab stops, Word deletes the built-in tab stops preceding the ones you create. So, if you create a tab stop at 3 inches, and another at 4 inches, Word eliminates all the default tab stops up to 4 inches, but has left-aligned tab stops at 4.5 inches, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, and so on, to the right edge of the page.
Caution
The Bar tab type in the Tabs dialog box creates a vertical rule—an up-and-down line—in the paragraph at the indicated tab location. This setting is a throwback to an early ver sion of Word that didn't have borders. If you need a vertical line, use tables or borders, but avoid this setting.
The next section contains a detailed example, showing how leaders can be used to create a fill-in-the-blanks form.
The tab stops you create are stored in the paragraph mark; copy or move a paragraph mark, and the tab stops go with it. If the insertion point is in a normal paragraph with custom tab stops and you press Enter, the new paragraph inherits the same tab stops. Many Word users—even advanced Word users—find that confusing. To restore a paragraph to the default (left-aligned tab stops every half inch), select the paragraph, bring up the Styles and Formatting task pane, and click the original style's name.