The paragraph settings change for all paragraphs in a document when you open the Tab dialog box in Word 2007

You click Tab on the Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph dialog box to open the Tab dialog box in Microsoft Office Word 2007. When the Tab dialog box opens, all the paragraphs in the document change to match the settings of the paragraph that contains the cursor. The following paragraph settings are changed:

• Paragraph Indents: Left, Right, First Line, and Hanging
• Paragraph Alignment: Left, Center, Right, and Justify
• Paragraph Spacing: Before and After
• Line Spacing

Additionally, if you create a new, blank document that is based on the Normal.dotm template, the new document has the new paragraph indentation settings applied to it.

To resolve this problem, apply the hotfix package that is described in the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge base:

To work around this problem, use one of the following methods.

Open the Tab dialog directly

To open the Tab dialog box directly, double-click the ruler. This action also sets a tab at the location on the ruler that you double-clicked.

Reset the paragraph settings

1. On the Home tab or on the Page Layout tab, click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher in the Paragraph group.
2. On the Indents and Spacing tab, change the Indent settings to the indentation settings that you want for the document.
3. Click Tab on the Indents and Spacing tab.

Change the default style for the document

1. On the Home tab, click the Styles Dialog Box Launcher in the Styles group.
2. At the bottom of the Styles dialog box, click Manage Styles.
3. On the Set Defaults tab, change the Paragraph Position and Paragraph Spacing settings to the values that you want.
4. Click New documents based on this template to apply the changes to new documents and to the current document.
5. Click OK.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.