SETTING INDENTS IN WORD 2007 MANUAL
SETTING INDENTS IN WORD 2007 SERIES

When people were using manual typewriters, they were taught to hit the space bar twice between two sentences. Then, when you hit the Enter key to start a new paragraph using that style, Word will automatically add extra spacing between the paragraphs.

Using the directions above, uncheck the Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style and make sure Auto is selected for space above and below. If you find it easier to write with extra space between paragraphs then you can change the style of Normal (or whatever style you are using for your chapter text) to add the space for you automatically. Your book designer will need to remove all of these extra paragraph breaks in order to format your book properly.Ī single paragraph break should always be used between paragraphs, not two or more. Extra Paragraph Breaks Between ParagraphsĪnother common mistake authors make is adding two or more paragraph breaks between paragraphs (hitting Enter more than once at the end of a paragraph). Microsoft Word’s default Normal style in older versions of Word is set to not add space between paragraphs by default so authors learned to add them in manually with extra paragraph breaks instead of modifying the style settings. See also: Word Tips For Writers: First Line Indents Using Styles (video) 2. When you send your document to your book designer they will not need to remove any tabs or spaces, which will speed up your job and reduce the possibility of errors (plus your designer will love you). Now, when you type your text into Word using the Normal style and hit Enter to start a new paragraph, it will be indented automatically and no extra spaces or tabs should be used. Then check Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style. Under the Indents and Spacing tab, navigate to Special: First Line and enter 0.25. Click on Modify.Ĭlick on the Format button at the bottom of the window that appears. In Word 2016 right-click the Normal style in the Home / Styles ribbon. Instead of adding the indentation with spaces or tabs, you should be changing the style settings for the style you are using for the chapter text, if using Word’s defaults this would likely be the Normal style. Authors mistakenly create an indent manually so they can distinguish paragraph breaks without realizing they should be modifying the style to do this automatically. The reason many people do this is the default Normal style in Microsoft Word is set to not indent the first line of a paragraph. If you used extra spaces or tabs to create a first line indent in your document, they will need to delete them from your document. When formatting, your book designer will use style settings to set the first line paragraph indent. You should not use extra spaces or tabs to indent the first line of each paragraph. This will show you all of the formatting markup in your Word document. If you can’t find it, you can also press Ctrl + * as a shortcut. The location for this in Word 2016 is shown below. The first thing you will want to do is view the formatting markup by toggling on the Show / Hide icon in Microsoft Word. If you are not sure which find/replace command to use to correct your issue, leave a comment describing your scenario and I will reply back with a Find and Replace for you to try. If you have a document already written in Word and it has some of these issues, don’t worry too much! There are many Find and Replace commands you can use in Word to correct them, which I detail below.

SETTING INDENTS IN WORD 2007 SERIES

A series of paragraph breaks (created by hitting the enter key) to force text onto the next page.Using only a paragraph break to create a scene break between paragraphs.Creating complex tables, charts, graphs at a page size larger than your book size.Using tabs at the end of a paragraph to create a new paragraph.Two line breaks inserted at the end of a paragraph instead of a paragraph break.

SETTING INDENTS IN WORD 2007 MANUAL

Manual line breaks at the end of each line of text in a paragraph.

Two spaces between sentences instead of one.

Two or more paragraph breaks between paragraphs.

Extra spaces or tabs used to create an indent for the first line of each paragraph.

However, there are some steps you can make when writing your book in Microsoft Word that will make the job of formatting your book easier and help prevent errors in the book formatting process.īelow are some of the most common issues I see in book documents sent to Jera Publishing to be formatted. When writing your book you should separate the writing from the formatting.

Setting indents in word 2007