Thinkabara

📝 Microsoft Word for Beginners · Lesson 3 of 9

Paragraphs, alignment and lists

Google Classroom

Alignment, bullets, numbering, indents and line spacing.

Alignment

Ctrl+LAlign left
Ctrl+ECenter
Ctrl+RAlign right
Ctrl+JJustify (both edges straight)

Lists

  1. Select a few lines
  2. On the Home tab click “Bullets” (dots) or “Numbering” (1, 2, 3)
  3. Enter at the end of a line adds a new item, and Enter twice ends the list
  4. Tab indents an item into a sub-list, and Shift+Tab moves it back

Indents

To indent the first line of each paragraph, don’t press the spacebar five times. Press Tab once, or set a first-line indent of 0.5" in Layout > Paragraph. To move a whole paragraph in, use “Increase Indent” on the Home tab.

Line spacing

Crowded text is hard to read. On the Home tab, in the “Line and Paragraph Spacing” button, choose 1.5 or 2.0. School papers in the US are usually double-spaced (2.0).

Tip

💡 Never move text with lots of spaces. Want it in the middle? Ctrl+E. The ¶ button on the Home tab shows hidden spaces and Enters so you can see what is going on.

✏️ Practice: your turn

  1. Write a shopping list of 5 items and turn it into a bulleted list
  2. Add two sub-items under one item with Tab
  3. Write a title and center it
  4. Write a short paragraph and set it to double spacing

✏️ No Word on this computer? Practice in our free online document editor

🧠 Quick quiz

Answer all 4 questions correctly to mark this lesson as done.

1. Which shortcut centers text?
2. How do you leave a bulleted list?
3. What does Tab do inside a list?
4. Most US school papers use which line spacing?

0 of 4 correct

All lessons in Microsoft Word for Beginners

  1. ✍️ 1. Your first documentOpen a document, type, save and undo a mistake
  2. 🎨 2. Formatting textFont, size, bold, color and the Format Painter
  3. 📐 3. Paragraphs, alignment and listsAlignment, bullets, numbering, indents and line spacing
  4. 🏷️ 4. Headings and stylesHeading 1 and Heading 2, the Navigation Pane and updating a style
  5. ▦ 5. TablesInsert a table, add rows and columns, design and merge cells
  6. 🖼️ 6. Pictures and shapesInsert a picture, resize it, wrap text and add alt text
  7. 📄 7. A neat pageMargins, orientation, page breaks, headers and page numbers
  8. 🎓 8. A paper ready to hand inTitle page, table of contents, footnotes, spell check and PDF
  9. ⚡ 9. Time-saving tricksFind and replace, paste without formatting, templates and sharing