I don’t really know how to use Word, I’ve always detested it and used other word processors, but it’s the expected format for what I’m submitting.
These particular folks want the damn thing to have an 0.5 indent for the first line of each paragraph, and to achieve that without using tabs: “No tabs or spacing to indent, please!”
Hmmph. I knew how to do that in other word processors… usually you invoke a “ruler” that shows up top and there’s some kind of little slidey-thing that you drag that represents “new paragraphs’ first line starts here” and a different slidey-thing that indicates “all other lines will word-wrap to a leftmost starting point of here”.
It seems like it ought to be simple, but MS Word has so damn many trinkets and settings and I’m just not finding it.
My version of MS Word is Microsoft Word for Mac 2011 version 14.2.0
Do you have the “paragraph” formatting dialog box in that version of Word? You want the “Indentation” setting. You just select “First Line” and then the amount you wish to indent by.
Under the Format menu I have Paragraph; within the Paragraph dialogbox I have “Indents and Spacing” (one of two tabbed display-areas of the dialogbox).
The “Indents and Spacing” has this:
Left: 0: <—— this is editable
I set it for 0.5 to see if that fixes anything. It doesn’t; it moves the left edge of the entire paragraph to 0.5.
I don’t see a “First Line” setting anywhere in this dialog.
There are several ways. I’ve never used that exact version, but most versions have a tiny icon at the very upper right part of the display area (below the ribbon) that toggles the ruler on and off. Then you can slide indent markers in the manner to which you are accustomed.
I don’t have your version, but on the same dialog tab with the Left & Right indentation settings I have a dropdown labeled “Special”. Which has choices of “none”, “first line” and “hanging”. You want “first line”.
Look for something similar to that.
Notice that any change you make here will apply only to the existing paragraph(s) that were selected when you opened the dialog. But once such a setting is set, then any future paragraphs spawned off one having this setting will also have the setting.
So for the naïve use case: First select all your body text, then apply the formatting. All future typing will then also pick up this formatting.
I don’t know diddly squat about Word. Left to my own devices I’d run MacWrite in a Mini vMac emulator under System 6 before I’d use Microsoft Word. I’ve hated it since 1986 and it’s only gotten worse. Which is to say that I’m woefully (albeit willfully) ignorant about many of its operations. I compose everything in a plain text editor and paste it into Word when I’m done with the rough draft in order to apply formatting.
WYSIWYG is like air conditioning, one of the greatest yet unsung inventions of humankind. It’s impossible to imagine anyone voluntarily not using it. I have severe doubts about those who don’t. They must also be abnormal in all other ways.
If you’re talking about writing in TeX or some other heavily marked up language, I’d agree. But typing plain text, and then formatting it?
Why the hell would you worry about formatting when you’re just starting out? You’re limiting yourself. You’re multitasking when you could be unitasking.
(I also can’t imagine using the WYSIWG mode here simply because it’s such a mess. Too many of the tags (like CODE, QUOTE, SPOILER, etc) don’t work, and it can’t handle removing stuff–it just leaves the junk in there. It would be like writing a webpage in Word 97.)
Well, I do use tex. I’ve written three books and numerous papers and I recoil in horror at the idea of using Word. When I want a half inch paragraph indentation, I put \parindent .5 in in the preamble. Halfway through, I want 3/4 inch, I put \parindend .75 in where I want. No muss, no fuss.
I see where my wife uses Word and she cannot do anything subtle with it. Not that it’s not possible but unless you think like the guy who programmed it, you will not find it.
