Decreasing a Paragraph's Indent

Summary: When formatting your document, you often have need to indent paragraphs. If you later want to decrease the indent used on some paragraphs, you can use the shortcuts provided in this tip. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

One of the common tasks done to "break up" text and make it more interesting to the reader is to indent some paragraphs. For instance, you may have several paragraphs indented to set them off from the left margin of the document. If you want to undo an indented paragraph, or reduce the indent, you can quickly do so in one of two ways:

In versions of Word prior to Word 2007, click on the Decrease Indent tool on the toolbar.
In Word 2007, click on the Decrease Indent tool in the Paragraph group of the Home tab of the ribbon.
Press Shift+Ctrl+M.

Tip #628 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Step Up and Take Control! Subscribers to WordTips know just how valuable a resource it is. WordTips Premium provides twice the number of exceptional, easy-to-understand tips every week in an ad-free newsletter, as well as substantial discounts on WordTips archives and e-books.

Check out WordTips Premium today!