Making Microsoft Word tabs decimal
November 4th, 2008 7 Comments
I'm currently using Microsoft Word to write some training material. It's not so bad. Not as nice as structured FrameMaker, where you don't need to keep styling and restyling things like in Word - but not so bad as I'd thought it might be after not having used Word in anger for quite a while.
One thing that's always irritated me is to do with tabs. Microsoft, being Americans, obviously still think in old money - i.e. I think they must use inches by default rather than centimetres, because even when you set a template to use centimetres, the default tab stops still use metric equivalents of imperial measurements. What I mean is that, although your tab ruler has quarter, half and whole centimetres marked, you try dragging a tab or an indent marker to one of these marks and it won't go. By default bullet point indents land somewhere after 0.5 cm. In fact they always go to 0.63 cm, which mystified me until I realised that 0.63 cm is the same as 0.25 of an inch. The thing that's always really annoyed me is that you can't just drag it to the 0.5 cm mark, you have to double-click it and manually change the value in the dialog box.
Well, this morning, after years of being irked by this, I finally came across the solution in a forum post by Stefan Blom, a Microsoft Word MVP (I've changed 0.5 in his original to 0.25, which I think is more useful):
On the Drawing toolbar, click Draw, and then click Grid.
Set the horizontal and vertical spacing to 0.25 cm.
Make sure that Snap objects to grid is checked.
Click Default to store the new settings in the attached template. (Clicking OK changes it for the current document, only.)
Now you can drag the indent indicators in increments of 0.25 cm.
If, in addition, you set the default tab stops to 0.25 cm (in Format > Tabs), you can press Ctrl+M each time you want to increase the left indent by 0.25 cm. (Ctrl+Shift+M outdents in the same increments.) And you can use Ctrl+T to set a hanging indent.
Note: When you use Ctrl+T the hanging indent goes to the next available tab stop (or the default tab stops if none are set). Pressing Shift+Ctrl+T "outdents" the current hanging indent by one tab place.
The amazing thing about this is that who'd have thought that you would set the tab defaults in the Drawing Grid dialog box. No wonder I never found it before now!
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March 14th, 2009 at 2:37 pm (#)
Fantastic piece of information! This has annoyed me for years as well.
Now that's sorted out, does anyone know how to stop the default spacing for bullets and numbering still using imperial-based spacing to align itself?
Thanks,
Geoff
April 24th, 2009 at 8:59 pm (#)
Yes, thanks - how MS can put this setting in a drawing gird is beyond me - that's MS!
Geoff - you need to edit the default bullet and list style.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:49 am (#)
thanks very much for this – a solution at last!
i'm speechless! only micros**t could have come up with such a comprehensively counterintuitive & cunning stunt as putting control of the default tab stop positions – which fundamentally determine the position of text – on the drawing toolbar, under an i've-never-used-this-in-over-20-years-of-word-power-user-professional-writing-and-editing option like Draw Grid (ffs!!!) … (speechless again …)
cheers,
andy
November 7th, 2009 at 11:51 am (#)
by the way, this also works on the mac (in word 2004, at least).
enjoy!
andy
November 7th, 2009 at 12:19 pm (#)
a final point (taken from the forum post by stefan blom, the original provider of the information (see link in 3rd para at top):
No, the connection to the drawing grid is not apparent. But it is
quite useful, once you learn about it.
Note that you can override the grid if, occasionally, you need to
specify different indents: just hold the Alt key whilst dragging the
indent markers (this applies also to dragging tab stops and resizing
table columns using the mouse).
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP
November 7th, 2009 at 12:31 pm (#)
ok, really the last one this time!
mr blom's second para is the key point (although his first para is enjoyable as a masterpiece of understatement!). it is, however, NOT from the forum post linked above, but from a subsequent post in the same thread (which, unhelpfully, can't actually be displayed as a thread – you have to follow the Follow-Ups: below his message)
best, andy
April 15th, 2010 at 2:14 am (#)
it has annoyed me too for years, i think it wont anymore , thanks