What is a specific location on the ruler to which you can move using the Tab key?

One of the most common word-processing mistakes is using spaces to align text. Using tabs ensures that your text is aligned perfectly and makes it much easier to modify settings.

A tab stop is the position at which the text-insertion point stops when you press the Tab key. Pressing the Tab key moves the insertion point to the right, shifting the position at which you will insert text.

Word documents are set up with default tab stops every 1/2-inch across the document, but you can set your own tab stops, too, wherever you want them. In fact, there are several different types of tab stop that you can use (left, centered, right, decimal, or bar) and a variety of other options, too.

  Left-aligned - Begins text at the tab stop (This is the default tab setting).

  Center-aligned - Centers text on the tab stop.

  Right-aligned - Ends the text at tab stop.

  Decimal - Centers text over decimal point for a list of numbers.

  Bar - Runs a vertical line through a selected paragraph at the tab stop.

When you set a custom tab, all the default tabs to the left of the custom tab are cleared - that is, when you press Tab, Word will ignore the default tabs and go to the first custom tab.

There is an advantage to using tabs rather than spacing. After the tabs are in your document, you can move or change the tab stops and then the selected text moves or realigns with those stops. Remember, however, that tabs belong to paragraphs. If you set tab stops as you type text and press Enter, the tab settings carry forward to the next paragraph.

Note: In most cases, the text is in proportional font. Because proportional-font characters take up different amounts of space, the text in that font cannot be aligned correctly using spaces.

To show or hide the horizontal and vertical rulers, click View Ruler at the top of the vertical scroll bar:

Note: The vertical ruler will not appear if it is turned off. To turn on the vertical ruler, do the following:

   1.   On the File tab, click the Options button:

   2.   Choose the Advanced tab.

   3.   Under Display, select the Show vertical ruler in Print Layout view check box.

See also this tip in French: Un alignement de texte parfait à l'aide de tabulation.

By using tab stops in your document, you can create uniformly spaced text. And, unlike if you were to just enter a bunch of spaces to separate text, tabs ensure your text remains properly aligned. Each time you press the Tab key, the cursor moves to the next tab stop. By default, Word has left tab stops set at every half-inch, but you can create your own tab stops in a specific position or change the location of the existing tab stops.

Enable Formatting Marks and the Ruler

Before you start adjusting tab stops, make sure to turn on both formatting marks and the ruler. The formatting marks make it easy to see what's going on in your document, especially when it comes to tabs. The ruler is necessary to easily add, move, and remove tab stops.

1. Click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Home tab.

Each space is represented by a dot (·) each pilcrow (¶) is a new paragraph, and each arrow (→) is a tab.

2. Click the View tab.
3. Click the Ruler checkbox in the Show group.

Set a Tab Stop Using the Ruler

1. Select the text you want to align.
2. Select the type of tab stop you want to use.

The tab icon at the upper-left shows the type of tab that's active. If you want something else, click the icon to cycle through the available options.

3. Click on the ruler where you want to place the tab stop.
   

The tab stop is added and everything after the tab is aligned to it.

Set a Custom Tab Stop

If you want to create an additional tab at an exact location, you can use a custom tab stop.

1. Click the Home tab.
2. Click the Paragraph dialog box launcher.

3. Click Tabs.
4. Type a tab stop position.
5. Select the type of tab stop you want to use in the Alignment section.

You can set a tab leader here, which is a series of dots, dashes, or line that extends across the empty space added by a tab. These are very helpful when you need to line up information across multiple lines, like in a directory or table of contents.

6. Click Set.

The tab stop is added. You can repeat the process to add more tab stops.

7. Click OK.

The tab stops you set are added to the selected paragraph.

Click the Clear button in the Tabs dialog box to remove a single tab stop or click the Clear All button to remove all tab stops.

Move or Remove a Tab Stop

You can adjust a tab stop directly from the ruler, moving it to a new position or removing it entirely.

1. Click and drag a tab stop along the ruler to reposition it.

As you drag a tab stop to a new position on the ruler, the text affected by that tab stop will move with it.

2. Click and drag a tab stop off the ruler to remove it.

Removing a tab stop will shift the text over to the next tab stop. If another tab stop isn’t set, the text will instead use the default half-inch tab spacing.

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