Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Deleting Tab Stops.

Deleting Tab Stops

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 22, 2025)

There may be times when you don't want to clear all the tab stops in your document—you only want to clear a few of them. To clear individual tab stops for a paragraph, follow these steps:

Make sure the insertion point is in the paragraph whose tabs you wish to clear.
Choose Tabs from the Format menu. Word displays the Tabs dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Tabs dialog box.

In the tab list below the Tab Stop Position box, select the tab stop you want to clear.
Click on Clear.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each tab stop you want to clear.
Click on OK.

If you have the ruler displayed on-screen, then you can also delete tabs by following these steps:

Make sure the insertion point is in the paragraph whose tabs you wish to clear.
Use the horizontal scroll bar to scroll left or right until you can see the offending tab on the ruler.
On the ruler, click on the tab indicator and drag it off the ruler. When you release the mouse button, the tab should disappear from the ruler.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each tab stop you wish to clear.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (246) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Deleting Tab Stops.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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