Paragraph buttons

Word's paragraph pane in the Home tab

The Paragraph pane (shown above in the Home tab) has some features we'll be using in conjunction with bulleted, or unordered, list styles. The bullet list styles are designed to be used once, to set them up on the first level, flush with the margin. After that, use the Increase Indent or Decrease Indent buttons in the Paragraph pane of the Home tab to move the lists to the right or left a half an inch.

Tools we will be using

Tools in Word's paragraph pane that are highlighted and numbered one through four: 1) Decrease indent button; 2) Increase indent button; 3) line and paragraph spacing button; and 4) Show or hide invisible characters button

Above: 1) Decrease Indent button; 2) Increase Indent button; 3) Line and Paragraph Spacing button; and 4) Show/Hide ¶ (invisible characters) button

1, 2 Decrease/Increase indent buttons

Apply the style ul-simple to a short block of text. While it may look no different than if you had used the Bullets button, using a style instead will save you some frustration. The Bullets button works according to its own rules, so it is to be avoided

Instead, use the style and then the Decrease Indent button (number 1 in the highlighted illustration, above) or Increase Indent button (number 2) as desired. The list item will then move in half-inch increments, left (assuming there's room) or right.

3 Line and paragraph spacing button

There will be times when a style is insufficient to give you the spacing you need between paragraphs. This happens rarely, but instead of defining a style for every small instance, just go ahead and click on the Line and Paragraph Spacings (button 3, above) and select either Add Space Before Paragraph or Add Space After Paragraph, depending on your needs. Word will apply the default line spacing, usually 12 points.

4 Show/Hide invisibles button (¶)

Technically, Microsoft just calls this the Show/Hide ¶ button. However, it also reveals various other non-printing formatting characters within a document, such as spaces, tab characters, hidden text, etc. – very useful when you’re poring over your document trying to figure out why something isn’t working as expected.

You can set which characters you want to see by navigating to FILE > Options and selecting the Display list item on the left.