Tip Sheet

Microsoft Word 2007 - Formatting text on the page

Left Centre Text Right

Indent Paragraph

Line Spacing

Page Margins

Page Orientation

Text Justification

What is justification?

This line is left justified.

The line is centre justified

This line is right justified.

Full justify is when your paragraph has both left and right justify at the same time.

The icons in the toolbar should explain that further for you. Normal justification is left. When you click on one of the justification icons (e.g. centre) the justification of the document will change (to centre justification, for example) from the point where your cursor is onwards. It will not return to the original justification (left) until you once again select it by clicking on the icon (the left justify icon in this example).

You can highlight text and then choose a justification just for the highlighted portion.

Paragraph Indent

To indent the first line of a paragraph (as shown in this paragraph), you place your cursor at the beginning of the line (in front of the first word) and then press the Tab key on the keyboard.

To indent the entire paragraph (as shown in this paragraph) you place your cursor anywhere in the paragraph, and then click on the Increase Indent icon on the Paragraph group. To reverse the process click on the Decrease Indent icon.

Line Spacing

Normal line spacing is single spacing. You can change this

On the Home tab, click the down arrow on the Line Spacing icon

Choose the required line spacing.

If you want more options select Line Spacing Options. The Paragraph dialog box opens,select the appropriate line spacing and change the spacing measurement.

Click on OK

Page Margins

The default (normal) margin around the page is 2.5cm (1 inch) on top and bottom and 3.17cm on the left and right. To adjust these
Select the Page Layout tab
Click on Margins

Select an option from the drop down menu.

Alternatively click custom margins. A Page Setup dialog box opens.

Margin settings apply to the whole page unless you choose the option to Apply to: and then click on This point forward (if you want the margin to apply to only a section of text from that point on).

Click OK

Orientation

There are two kinds of page layouts.

Portrait which lays out the page vertically or landscape which lays out the page horizontally (see above).