Explore paragraph dialog box options
There are general, indentation, and spacing options available in the Paragraph dialog box
options. At the bottom of the dialog box, you can see a Preview of how the options will look before you apply them.
| General | |
|---|---|
| Alignment | Choose Left to align text to the left with a ragged right edge (or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+L). |
| Choose Center to center text with a ragged left and right edge (Ctrl+E). | |
| Choose Right to align text to the right with a ragged left edge (Ctrl+R). | |
| Choose Justify to align text both left and right, adding space between words (Ctrl+J). | |
| Outline level | The level at which the paragraph appears in Outline view. |
| Choose Collapsed by default if you want the document to open with headings collapsed by default. See Collapse or expand parts of a document to learn more. |
| Indentation | |
|---|---|
| Left | Indents the paragraph on the left by the amount you choose. |
| Right | Indents the paragraph on the right by the amount you choose. |
| Special | Choose First line > By to indent the first line of a paragraph. To quickly create a first line indent using the ruler, see Create a first line indent. |
| Choose Hanging > By to create a hanging indent. To quickly create a hanging indent using the ruler, see Create a hanging indent. | |
| Mirror indents | When you choose this, Left and Right become Inside and Outside. This is for book style printing. |
| Spacing | |
|---|---|
| Before | Adjusts the amount of space before a paragraph. |
| After | Adjusts the amount of space after a paragraph. |
| Line spacing | Choose Single to single-space text. To quickly single space your entire document, see Single space lines in a document. |
| Choose 1.5 lines to space text one-and-one-half times that of single spacing. | |
| Choose Double to double-space text. To quickly double space your entire document, see Double space lines in a document. | |
| Choose At least > At to set the minimum amount of spacing needed to fit the largest font or graphic on the line. | |
| Choose Exactly > At to set fixed line spacing, expressed in points. For example, if the text is in 10-point font, you can specify 12 points as the line spacing. | |
| Choose Multiple > At to set line spacing as a multiple expressed in numbers greater than 1. For example, setting line spacing to 1.15 will increase the space by 15 percent, and setting line spacing to 3 increases the space by 300 percent (triple spacing). | |
| Don’t add | Choose Don’t add space between paragraphs when you don’t want extra space between paragraphs. |
If you want to save the settings you chose as your default, select Set as Default.
