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How to Line Up Bullets & Paragraphs in Microsoft Word

    Align to Left and Right Margins

    • 1). Open an existing Word document with several paragraphs, then click the mouse to the left of the first character of a paragraph you want to align.

    • 2). Drag the mouse to the right of the last paragraph you want to align and release the mouse button. This action selects the paragraphs for formatting, which Word indicates by temporarily coloring the paragraphs.

    • 3). Click the "Home" tab, then click the icon in the Paragraph panel whose lines are aligned with the left side of the icon. This icon represents the "Align text left" command, which lines up paragraphs with the left margin.

    • 4). Click the icon in the Paragraph panel whose lines are even with the right side of the icon to run the "Align text right" command. Word lines up your paragraphs with the right margin of your document's current section.

    • 5). Click the icon in the Paragraph panel whose lines are even with both left and right sides of the icon. This action runs the "Justify" command, which makes the leftmost and rightmost words of each line in a paragraph alight with their respective margins. Note that this and other formatting commands in this section apply to bulleted and non-bulleted paragraphs.

    Align Bullets

    • 1). Open a Word document with several paragraphs that are formatted with bullets. Click your mouse on the first bulleted paragraph you want to align, then drag the mouse to the last bulleted paragraph you want to align.

    • 2). Click the "Home" tab, then click the small arrow in the lower right corner of the Paragraph panel to display the dialog box for formatting paragraphs.

    • 3). Type a "0" in the "Left" control of the "Indentation" heading, then click the "(none)" item in the "Special" drop-down list to indicate you don't want a hanging indent. Click "OK" to close the dialog box. The bullets of the paragraphs you selected now alight with first characters of non-bulleted paragraphs. The following steps make the first words of bulleted paragraphs align with the first words of non-bulleted text.

    • 4). Use Step 1's instructions to select the bulleted paragraphs you want to align, then use Step 2's instructions to display the dialog box for formatting paragraphs.

    • 5). Click the down arrow of the "Left" control in the "Indentation" heading until the number in that control is approximately "-0.25." This makes the bullet move to the left of the left margin, which gives the text in the bulleted paragraph room to alight with the text of non-bulleted paragraphs.

    • 6). Click "OK" to close the dialog box, then click the horizontal ruler above the document window at the same location as that of the first character of a non-bulleted paragraph. For example, a non-bulleted paragraph following a bulleted one may have its first character located at the "0" mark on the horizontal ruler. In this case, you would click the ruler at this "0" mark to place a tab here. The tab tells Word where to position the character that follows the bullet icon.

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