Change your tabs in Word

The default, every-half-inch tab stops in Word 2007 are fine for most people. But maybe you're not like most people. No worries. Who wants to be like everyone else anyway? You can have it your way; at least with tabs.

The easiest way to reach the tab settings is through the Paragraph dialog box on the Home tab of Ribbon. In the lower right corner of the Paragraph section, you'll find a tiny icon (the arrow thingie). Click on it. Then click on the Tabs button on the lower left in the dialog box.

From this box, you can set individual tab stops, set a new distance between stops, and specify whether text should be flush left, right

Even though it says ‘default tab stops,’ it doesn’t change the default tabs for every document, only for the current document. If you want to make these changes for good, you need to make them in the Normal document template. Find your normal template by clicking on the Office button, and then Open. You should see a folder named Templates. That’s where you can find your templates, unless they have been saved elsewhere.

Or, best practice, create a new template that has your custom tabs and leave the normal template as is. To create a new template, open a document and make your changes, give it a name and save it as a template.

Suzanne