4 Quick & Easy Ways to Indent in Microsoft Word

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A step-by-step guide to indenting in Microsoft Word

Written by Hannah Dillon

Last Updated: February 19, 2026 Fact Checked

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• Creating a Hanging Indent
|
• Indenting One Sentence
|
• Indenting an Entire Paragraph
|
• Automatic First-Line Indenting
|
• Video
|
• Q&A

|Show more |Show less

While writing, it is important to use indents before the start of a new paragraph to keep your work looking nicely formatted. You might also need to do a specialty indent (such as a hanging indent) when writing certain things, such as a bibliography. This wikiHow teaches you how to do a hanging indent, indent a sentence, indent a paragraph, and automatically indent the first sentence of each paragraph.

Ways to Indent in Word

• Create a hanging indent by highlighting a paragraph, right-clicking it, choosing Paragraph…, and selecting Special > Hanging.
• Indent any sentence by placing your cursor in front of it and pressing Tab.
• Indent a paragraph by highlighting it and pressing Tab.
• Set up automatic first-line indenting by editing the Normal text style.

Steps

Method 1

Method 1 of 4:

Creating a Hanging Indent

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1. 
   1
   Select the text for which you want to create a hanging indent. To do this, place your cursor before the first word, then drag the cursor (don’t let go of the left mouse button!) all the way to the end. When you lift your finger from the button, the paragraph will appear highlighted in blue.

   • A hanging indent indents the second line of a paragraph instead of the first.
   • Hanging indents are common when formatting Works Cited pages in MLA-formatted essays and References pages in APA-formatted essays.
2. 
   2
   Right-click or control-click the highlighted area and click Paragraph…. A pop-up window will appear.
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3. 
   3
   Click the drop-down menu under "Special." It’s in the "Indentation" section.
4. 
   4
   Select Hanging. It's the bottom option in the drop-down menu.
5. 
   5
   Click OK. The second line in the paragraph will move 0.5" inward.

   • Repeat these steps for each section in your bibliography or reference page.
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Method 2

Method 2 of 4:

Indenting One Sentence

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1. 
   1
   Place your cursor where you want the indent to go. If you just want to indent the first sentence in a paragraph, you can do so easily with this method. To get started, click before the first word in your sentence or paragraph.
2. 
   2
   Press Tab ↹ on the keyboard. This inserts a standard indent, which is 0.5” wide.
3. 
   3
   Type your sentence. Once you reach the end of the line, Word will automatically arrange your text so that only the first line contains that 0.5" space.

   • Repeat these steps every time you want to indent the first line of a paragraph. Or, you can set up automatic indenting so you don't have to press Tab ↹ every time you want to indent.
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Method 3

Method 3 of 4:

Indenting an Entire Paragraph

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1. 
   1
   Open your document and highlight an entire paragraph. To do this, place your cursor before the first word, then drag the cursor (don’t let go of the left mouse button!) all the way to the end. When you lift your finger from the button, the paragraph will appear highlighted in blue.
2. 
   2
   Press Tab ↹ on the keyboard. The entire selected paragraph will move 0.5" to the right.

   • To move the paragraph another 0.5", press Tab ↹ again.
   • Repeat these steps for each paragraph you want to indent.
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Method 4

Method 4 of 4:

Automatic First-Line Indenting

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1. 
   1
   Open your document and right-click the "Normal" style in the ribbon. The ribbon is located at the top of the screen, and the "Normal" style is located in the section that says "Styles."
2. 
   2
   Click Modify…. This will open a pop-up with various settings you can change.
3. 
   3
   Click the Format button in the bottom left corner. This will open a drop-down menu.
4. 
   4
   Choose Paragraph…. This will open a new window where you can edit the behavior of paragraphs in the Normal style.
5. 
   5
   Click the drop-down under "Special." It's under the header that says "Indentation."
6. 
   6
   Choose First line. You'll see the preview at the bottom of the screen change to show the first line indent.
7. 
   7
   Click OK, then OK again. Now, the first line of your paragraph will always be indented when you use the Normal style (which is the default text style for Word documents).

   • To disable first-line indenting, follow the steps in this section again, but choose (none) in the "Special" drop-down menu.
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Community Q&A

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• Question

  How do you get out of indention and return to normal typing?

  

  Ammar D

  Community Answer

  Press Enter, then press Backspace. It should get you back into unindented typing.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
  Thank you for your feedback.
  If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow

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  Not Helpful 2 Helpful 2
• Question

  How do I indent the first line?

  

  Connor03

  Community Answer

  You can press the Tab key or press the Spacebar five times to create the indent.

  Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
  Thank you for your feedback.
  If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow

  Yes No

  Not Helpful 0 Helpful 0

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