Resetting to Factory Defaults for Bulleted Lists

When you display the Bullets and Numbering dialog box (Format | Bullets and Numbering), Word displays on the Bulleted tab a number of different types of bullet styles you can apply in your document. Don't confuse these with actual styles; they are not the same. The different options on the Bulleted tab represent different ways that bulleted lists can be formatted. There are eight formats shown on the tab, with the top-left format being "None." Collectively these eight formats are known as a "gallery."

Over time you can modify the appearance of these different bullet formats. When you do, the format displayed in the gallery changes to show, approximately, how a bulleted list formatted with that particular gallery option will appear. At some point you may want to reset these gallery formats to their original state. You can do so by following these steps:

1. Choose Bullets and Numbering from the Format menu. Word displays the Bullets and Numbering dialog box.
2. Make sure the Bulleted tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.) In the gallery formats displayed, the None option should be selected.



Figure 1. The Bulleted tab of the Bullets and Numbering dialog box.

3. Select one of the seven other formats shown in the gallery.
4. If the Reset button becomes available, click it. Word asks if you want to reset the gallery position to its default.
5. Click Yes. Word resets the format of that gallery position.
6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 for the other gallery formats on the tab.
7. Click Cancel to close the dialog box without applying the last-selected gallery format to the paragraph in your document.

Resetting the formats in the gallery doesn't affect any of the bulleted lists you've already formatted in your document. In order to change those, you'll need to select the paragraph and again apply a format from the gallery. (Of course, if you use lots of bulleted lists, you'll find it more satisfying in the long run to use actual styles.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (94) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.