Indent or add margins to text

You can quickly add margins and padding to any side of a paragraph by dragging on the handles or edges of the paragraph in Design view. When you only want to set the left margin (indent) of paragraphs, you can also use either a keyboard shortcut in Design view or buttons on the Common or Formatting toolbars. The Paragraph dialog box enables you to add margins of space to the left or right side of a paragraph or both, and indent the first line in a paragraph, while also providing you with many other common paragraph properties.

To set the margin or padding of a paragraph

1. On the View menu, point to Visual Aids, and select Show.

2. On the View menu, point to Visual Aids again, and select Block Selection.

3. In Design view, in your web page, put your cursor in the item and then do one of the following:

   • Click the "p" visual aids tab that appears on top of the paragraph.

   • Click the dotted line that surrounds the item's block.

   • Click the paragraph's <p> tag in the quick tag selector bar at the top of the document window.

4. Do one or more of the following:

   • To set a margin, drag the margin line handle or edge on the side you want.

   • To set padding, press and hold SHIFT, and then drag the padding line handle or edge on the side you want.

For more information, see Set margins, padding, and dimensions in Design view.

To increase or decrease the indent by a preset amount

Do one of the following:

• In Design view, in your web page, select one or more paragraphs, and then press TAB to increase the indent or press SHIFT+TAB to decrease the indent.

• In Design view or Code view, in your web page, put your cursor in a paragraph or select one or more paragraphs, and then on the Common or Formatting toolbar, click either Increase Indent Position  or Decrease Indent Position .

To set paragraph margins or indent the first line in a paragraph

1. In Design view or Code view, in your web page, put your cursor in a paragraph or select one or more paragraphs.

2. On the Format menu, click Paragraph.

3. In the Paragraph dialog box, do the following:

   Use this	To do this
   Alignment	Select an option to align the paragraph.
   Left side	Enter the number of pixels to indent the left side of the paragraph.
   Right side	Enter the number of pixels to indent the right side of the paragraph.
   Indent first line	Enter the number of pixels to indent the first line of text in the paragraph.

See also

Tasks

Set text spacing
Select text
Set margins, padding, and dimensions in Design view

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