I’m the first to admit I’m not an expert in Word… not even close. I use Excel and Access every day, but Word not so much.
My wife got handed off at the last minute a program for my daughter’s soccer banquet (HS) and there is a list on one page with the name of the volunteer, then a bunch of dots, then the job they did. Right away I knew it was done wrong because they had simply typed in the dots needed to make it look like it was justified to both borders. Of course when it prints it is all over the place.
I know there is a way to just type the name, hit a tab (I think) then the function, and Word will automatically justify to both margins and add the dots, but I’ll be damned if I can find it anymore. I’ve got Word 2007 so if anyone can help me out with this I’d be very grateful. I tried to just hit the justify both button and the left margins are good but not the right.
I used to know how to do this in an earlier version of Word, but not the one I have now.
I think the function you’re looking for is creating a bulleted list. I use Word 2008 for a Mac, so it may not be in the same place, but look under Format in the menu bar for Bullets and Numbering. Highlight the first name and click on the bullet style you want, then the following names that you type should all have the bullets.
The actual term in Word 2010 is “leader” – I can’t remember what they call it in 2007, but if you do a help search with “tabs” and “leader” you’ll find the directions you need.
Thanks guys… I tried all these suggestions, and even what Word Help said to do, and I couldn’t get the tab to add the dot leaders, nor get it to justify to the right margin. I did notice that the file said it was in “compatibility mode” so my guess is that the original document wasn’t created in Word so who knows what was going on.
I finally decided that this is a paper that will be looked at, and people will complain “I helped with walking taco night… why didn’t I get credit?” and at the end of the night it will be tossed in the trash. Also, I’m already mad that the banquet is on election night AND this was dumped on us at the last minute because the person who was supposed to do it “didn’t have time to finish.” So, I deleted all of the mishmash of dots and spaces and re-entered a consistent dot space pattern until it wrapped to the next line then hit back space to make it line up (close, but not perfectly).
I just cracked open a beer, and am much less frustrated than I was just an hour ago.
Sorry, Spud. I completely misunderstood what you were trying to do.
You have to do it through the tabs.
Type John Smith <tab> Tacos
Highlight that line of text
Go to Tabs under Format
To get it justified, you want to use a right tab. Enter the measurement of where you want the ends of the words to line up. I arbitrarily entered 5" as the tab stop position. Under alignment, click right. Under leader, click 2, which is dots. Hit OK.
You are a life saver! I just saw the tab stop default listed next to the blank as 0.5" and thought that meant 0.5" before the right side of the page. I saw this and realized that I needed to set it to 8" for 8.5 x 11 paper. Voila!
Perfect.
Thank you so much
It looked ok as I had it, but as a tech guy I hate work arounds. And since a lot of what I do is cleaning up people’s worksheets where they used work arounds that ultimately screwed up the overall functionality it really rubbed against my grain to resort to that. Took me under 2 minutes to make it “right.”