In Word for Mac, the Show Paragraph marks button is handily already in the top toolbar.
I’ve actually put this button onto my Quick Access Toolbar ( find out how to do that) as it’s a very useful button for an editor/proofreader! Show Paragraph marks in Word for Mac Press the button, it will go orange, and your formatting marks will display. Go to the Home tab and you’ll find it half way along.
So, how did I get to see these funny marks? In Word for both Mac and PC, you can find a button with the paragraph mark on it which will make them display: Show Paragraph marks in Word for PC For example, in this document, I can see that the author has used the Return key to force text to appear on a new page (instead of using Ctrl-Enter to force a page break):Īnd when I’ve done it properly, I can see the page break marked: Why is it useful? It means that if you are editing or otherwise tidying up a document, you can see what’s been done in order to resolve it. Basically, this means that you can see where the author of a document has pressed the Return key or Tab or Space, or inserted a forced break or some other formatting. Word gives you the option to view paragraph marks and other hidden formatting symbols. What were all these funny symbols? Where had they come from and, more importantly, how could she get rid of them? Showing paragraph marks and other hidden formatting symbols All sorts of odd marks had appeared in her Word document. Word provides a variety of indents to emphasize paragraphs in a document.A friend got in touch recently in a bit of a panic. Indented paragraphs appear to have different margin settings. If a document has 12-point text, then one line space equals 12-points, one-half line space equals 6-points, double-spacing equals 24-points.Īn indent increases the distance between the side of a paragraph and the left or right margin. You use the Paragraph dialog box to set the space between paragraphs. Notice that Word has added an extra quarter-line of space between lines in the paragraph. Press Tab to see the change in the preview pane. In the At box, key 1.25 (highlight the text in the box and type over it).
You can see the change in the preview box. Click the down arrow to open the line spacing drop-down list and choose Double.(You can also open this menu by selecting Paragraph from the Format menu). Right-click the first paragraph and choose Paragraph from the shortcut menu.Choose 1.0 to restore the single-spacing to the paragraph. With the insertion point in the same paragraph, click the down arrow to the right of the Line Spacing button on the formatting toolbar.Instead of pressing Enter multiple times to increase space between paragraphs, you can set a specific amount of space before or after paragraphs. Paragraph space is the amount of space above or below a paragraph.
Single-spacing is Word’s default setting. For example, some paragraphs may be single spaced and some double-spaced. Line spacing is typically based on the height of the characters, but you can change it to a specific value. Line space is the amount of vertical space between lines of text in a paragraph. Ctrl+L= Left Align Ctrl+R= Right Align Ctrl+E= Center Ctrl+J= Justify.
The easiest way to change paragraph alignment is to use the alignment buttons on the Formatting toolbar. The margin is the blank space between the edge of the paper and where the text. Paragraph alignment determines how the lines in a paragraph appear in relation to the left and right margins. You can copy paragraph formats from paragraph to paragraph and view formats through task panes. All formatting for a paragraph is stored in the paragraph mark and carried to the next paragraph when you press the Enter key. Paragraph formatting is applied to an entire paragraph. You can indent paragraphs, number them, or add borders and shading to them. For example, you can change the alignment of text from left to center or the spacing between lines form single to double. Paragraph formatting lets you control the appearance if individual paragraphs. You insert a hard return anytime you press the Enter key.
A paragraph in Word is any text that ends with a hard return.