Using Tabs | Running Microsoft Office 2000

Pressing the Tab key inserts white space into your document and moves the insertion point so that the next character you type will be aligned on the next tab stop. The Tab key doesn't insert a series of space characters; rather, it inserts a single nonprinting character that you can delete with a single press of the Backspace or Delete key. You can make tab characters visible on the screen—as small arrows—by choosing Options from the Tools menu, clicking the View tab, and selecting the Tab Characters option. (Or you can click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Standard toolbar to show all nonprinting characters.) See Figure 9-1.

You can use tabs to arrange numbers or small blocks of text into rows and columns. In general, however, Word tables (discussed in the next section) are easier to use and are a more versatile method for arranging text into rows and columns, especially if any of the individual blocks of text you're arranging won't fit on a single line.

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Figure 9-1. Tab characters and tab stops.

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Use Ctrl+Tab to Insert Tabs in Outline View or in Tables
To insert a tab character within a Word table or to insert a tab when you're in Outline view, press Ctrl+Tab. You must also press Ctrl+Tab to insert a tab at the beginning of a line of text if you have selected the Tabs And Backspace Set Left Indent editing option. This option is described in "Using Shortcut Keys to Apply Paragraph Formatting".

In Word, you can adjust both the spacing and the type of the tab stops. Word has two basic kinds of tab stops: default and custom. Default tab stops apply to the entire document; they are not, therefore, strictly paragraph formatting. In documents created from most templates, the default tab stops are set at .5 inch. This means that anywhere in the document (unless you have set custom tab stops), tab stops will be placed at half-inch intervals, starting at the left margin. The default tab stops are marked with small vertical lines at the bottom of the ruler:

You can change the default tab stops for the currently opened document, as follows:

Choose Tabs from the Format menu. Word will open the Tabs dialog box. (See Figure 9-2.)

Enter a new value in the Default Tab Stops box, and click OK.

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Changing the default tab stops will affect only the document currently displayed in the Word window. To change the default tab stops for all documents you create based on a particular template, open that template, perform the steps given above, and save the template.

You can also define custom tab stops. Unlike default tab stops, custom tab stops are considered paragraph formatting; therefore, they affect only the paragraph or paragraphs to which you have applied them. You can define custom tab stops using either the ruler or the Tabs dialog box.

Defining Custom Tab Stops Using the Ruler

The easiest way to define custom tab stops is to use the horizontal ruler. (If the ruler isn't shown, choose Ruler from the View menu. You can also temporarily view the ruler by holding the mouse pointer over the gray bar at the top of the window's document area.) The following is the procedure:

Select the paragraph or paragraphs for which you want to define custom tab stops. (To modify a single paragraph, you can just place the insertion point anywhere within it.)

NOTE
If you're in Outline view, you must switch to one of the other views to set tabs.

Symbol	Type of Tab Stop
	Left tab stop.
	Center tab stop.
	Right tab stop.
	Decimal tab stop.
	Bar. Inserts a vertical bar, not a tab stop.
	First Line Indent. Creates a first-line-only indent; doesn't insert a tab stop.
	Hanging Indent. Creates a hanging indent; doesn't insert a tab stop.

Symbol

Type of Tab Stop

Left tab stop.

Center tab stop.

Right tab stop.

Decimal tab stop.

Bar. Inserts a vertical bar, not a tab stop.

First Line Indent. Creates a first-line-only indent; doesn't insert a tab stop.

Hanging Indent. Creates a hanging indent; doesn't insert a tab stop.

Defining Custom Tab Stops Using the Tabs Dialog Box

You can also define custom tab stops using the Tabs dialog box, which provides the following additional features:

You can enter precise measurements for the positions of the tab stops.

You can fill the space preceding the tab with a leader character.

Select the paragraph or paragraphs for which you want to define custom tab stops.

Open the Tabs dialog box (see Figure 9-2) by choosing Tabs from the Format menu. Or you can click the Tabs button within the Paragraph dialog box, as described in Chapter 7.

To define a new tab stop, enter its position (that is, its distance from the left margin) in the Tab Stop Position box.

Choose the type of tab stop you want by selecting one of the options in the Alignment area of the Tabs dialog box. The different types are shown in Figure 9-3. The Bar option adds a vertical line to the paragraph rather than defining a custom tab stop.

If you want to fill the blank space before the tab using a leader character, select option 2, 3, or 4 in the Leader area of the Tabs dialog box. For example, the following numbers are aligned with decimal tabs that have been assigned a leader character (option 2):

Click the Set button. The tab will be added to the list.

Repeat steps 3 through 6 for each additional custom tab stop that you want to define. To remove a custom tab stop, select it in the list in the Tabs dialog box, and click Clear (or click Clear All to remove all custom tab stops and restore the default tab stops).

Click OK to accept your custom tab stop or stops and return to the document.

Running Microsoft Office 2000

ISBN: 1572319585
EAN: 2147483647

Year: 2005
Pages: 228

Authors: Michael Halvorson, Michael J. Young

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