Text can aligned at these tab stops by pressing the tab key. These tabs are shown as small vertical lines along the bottom of the ruler. The ruler displayed at the top displays default left tabs at approximately every half inch. Right tab - Text is aligned with its right edge on the tab stopĭecimal tab - Numbers are aligned with the decimal point beneath the tab stop Left tab - Text is aligned with its left edge on the tab stopĬentre tab - Text is centred beneath the tab stop You must clear all tabs first and ensure default is set to 1.27cm You should always work with the Paragraph marks being displayed. Whenever you press the Tab key the default tab size is used. You can use the tab button on the keyboard to indent your lines by a given amount. The selected symbols, if any, should now appear all the time in your documents, and toggling the show/hide paragraph & formatting marks symbol will only show or hide the remaining ones! This also includes other non-printing symbols like page breaks and section breaks.Every line in a particular paragraph has the same tab stops, in the same location. Once you are done, click on the ' OK' button to apply your new settings and return to Microsoft Word (or click ' Cancel' to retain your current setup).Put yet another way, it will persist as long as you don't disable it in the ribbon (by clicking on the button or pressing Ctrl+*).

In other words, although it appears as a 'persistent' setting, clicking the show/hide button in the Word 2010 ribbon will disable that option, which will not re-appear enabled when you open a new, or another, Microsoft Word document.

The last checkbox, ' Show all formatting marks', is a bit confusing - so let's clarify what it does: checking it is akin to clicking on the Show/hide button when you are back in Microsoft Word.

To always show one or more formatting marks regardless of this button, check each item: Tab characters, Spaces, Paragraph marks, Hidden text, Optional hyphens, and Object anchors.

By default, all symbols are unchecked, which means that they're not displayed on screen unless you click on the 'Show/hide' button described earlier.

Tip: ensure that you currently have a document opened in Word 2010, otherwise these checkboxes will appear disabled (grayed out).

The second section of settings, labeled ' Always show these formatting marks on the screen', lists all the symbols you can show in your document.

Then, select the ' Display' tab on the left hand side. Showing and hiding these symbols as needed may quickly become tedious, which is why you can configure Word to show some of them at all times: click on the ' File' menu / button in the top left corner of the window, and choose ' Options'. You may not always want to show all these (potentially distracting) symbols on screen, so Word 2010 offers an option to always show only some of them, as explained below: Always show (some) formatting symbols

(In other words, press the Ctrl key, Shift key, and the number 8 simultaneously.) Tip: if you often find yourself hiding and showing paragraph symbols and other formatting marks as you write your papers, Word 2010 offers a convenient keyboard shortcut press the Ctrl+* keystroke to toggle on/off. If the button shows that it is turned on, but nothing happens (assuming that your document contains some text), please see the next section - it probably just means that some marks have been disabled! Under the ' Paragraph' tab grouping, you'll see a button with the paragraph sign on it, as shown below click on it:Īs soon as you do, Word 2010 will 'highlight' the button's background to indicate that the feature is currently enabled, and you'll see formatting marks and paragraph symbols throughout your document. To show these symbols in your document, look at the ribbon ('toolbar') at the top of the Microsoft Word window, and make sure that the ' Home' tab is selected.

Microsoft word symbols paragraph tab