Working With Paragraphs Part 1
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph. Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format. (¶)
You will need to type a paragraph, or copy and paste these two paragraphs from this page. End paragraphs where you see the end-of-paragraph marker (¶). Press Enter once to end the paragraph, but do not leave spaces between paragraphs. You will set the space between paragraphs during the exercise. Do not press Enter to move to a new line -- Microsoft Word automatically wraps at the end of a line. (¶)
Space Before sets the amount of space before the paragraph. Space After sets the amount of space after the paragraph. In the above are the sample paragraphs with Space After set to 12 pt. The exercises give you a chance to see how this works.
Line Spacing sets the amount of space between lines within a paragraph. Single spacing is the default. The spacing for each line is set to accommodate the largest font on that line. If there are smaller fonts on the line, there will appear to be extra space between lines where the smaller fonts are located. At 1.5 lines, the Line Spacing is set to one-and-a-half times the single-space amount. For double-spaced lines, the line spacing is set to two times the single-space amount.
This exercise will demonstrate how you can indent the left side of the first line of your
paragraph, as in the this example sentence.
Indentation allows you to indent your paragraph from the left or right margin. The following examples show different types of indentation using the same sample paragraph used above:
Example Indentation:
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph. Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format.
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph. Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format.
Increasing and Decreasing Paragraph Indentation
You can also increase and decrease paragraphs using the decrease and increase paragraph button located on the formatting toolbar.
To decrease the indent of the paragraph to the previous tab stop:
on the formatting toolbar.To increase the indent of the paragraph to the next tab stop:
on
the formatting toolbar.Microsoft Word gives you a choice of several types of alignment. Left-justified text is aligned on the left side. It is the default setting. The section titles, as the Alignment section shown above, is an example of left-justified.
Left-justified paragraph with the same sample paragraph used above:
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph. Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format.
Right-justified text is aligned on the right side. Right-Justified sample paragraph:
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph. Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format.
Centered text is centered between the left and right margins. Center-Justified sample paragraph:
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph. Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format.
Justified text is flush on both sides. Justified sample paragraph:
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph. Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format.
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The text should now be centered. 
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The text should now be justified. The hanging indent feature indents each line except the first line by the amount specified in the By field, as shown in the example. This is shown with double-spacing as in work cites in a report.
When executing paragraph formatting, you do not need to highlight the entire paragraph.
Placing the cursor anywhere in the paragraph will enable you to format it. After you set a paragraph
format, subsequent paragraphs will have the same format unless you change their format.
When you begin typing the following paragraph, you might find that your paragraph is indented one inch on both sides. When you start a new paragraph in Microsoft Word, the setting from the previous paragraph carries over. If you wish, you can reset the indentation. If you choose not to reset the indentation, it will not affect your ability to perform the exercise.
