To set margins, click on File, Page Setup. The page setup dialog box opens and you will notice that there are default margins. The top and bottom margins are 1 inch; left and right margins are 1.25 inches. The gutter, which would be the space allowed for stapling, etc., is set to left and zero. You may change any numbers in there. You have the little rotating boxes or you can simply drag over and key the desired number. For portrait, the narrow side of the paper is the width. If you change it to landscape, it rotates the page, and the longer side becomes the width. Once you have made those choices, then click OK.
To type a double-spaced document, you will choose the line-spacing list arrow. Choose 2 for double spacing. As you touch the Enter key, each line will be double spaced. Double spacing can also be assigned to single-spaced material. First, select the material to be double spaced. Either use the line-spacing icon and choose double spacing, or click on Format, Paragraph, and choose Line Spacing, Double. Click OK and the selected material is double spaced.
Wordwrap is a feature in Microsoft Word that means you key lines of text and allow the program to wrap the ends of the lines. The only time you touch the paragraph Return is when you want to create a new paragraph. Click the Show/Hide button to display the paragraph return. I want to demonstrate wordwrap here. I'll type the first line of Paragraph 1. Notice that the paragraph or Return key was not tapped. The program wrapped the sentence. We will assume that we will end the paragraph at this point. Touch the Enter key. Anywhere you see a paragraph symbol, that is the end of a paragraph. There should not be paragraph symbols at the ends of lines when the Show/Hide button is displayed. When you turn Show/Hide off, it is impossible to tell whether someone has touched the Enter key at the end of a line or not.
To set alignment, first click anywhere within the paragraph. When the Show/Hide button is selected, a paragraph is any material with a paragraph symbol displayed after it. There are four choices: align left, center, align right, justify. To center the title, we will click on the Center button. To demonstrate, I will remove the tab and will be working with Paragraph 1. Left align keeps the left margin of the paragraph even, but the right margin is ragged. Center centers every line in the paragraph. Align right makes the right margin even but the left margin ragged. Justify keeps both the left and right margins even. It does so by adding minimal space between words in each line. The standard alignment is left align for a report.
To indent a paragraph, click anywhere within a paragraph. Choose Format, Paragraph. Under Indentation, you have choices to indent the left margin, the right margin, or some special choices to indent the first line or create a hanging indent. We will create a left indention of one-half inch. I'll key .5 and click OK. Notice that the left margin is indented, but the right margin remains the same. To indent the right margin, I'll choose Format, Paragraph and enter .5 to indent the right margin one-half inch. Now both margins are indented one-half inch. This is the type of indention you would use for a long quotation. Now we will do a first-line indent. Choose Format, Paragraph, and under special, choose First Line. You can set the value. If we want a half-inch indention, we would key .5, and OK. Each time you touch the Enter key to begin a new paragraph, the paragraph will automatically be indented so that you won't have to touch a Tab key each time. And then we want to look at a hanging indent. Choose Format, Paragraph. Under special, choose Hanging. This will indent all lines except the first line. Notice the first line extends to the left and the other lines are indented. On the formatting toolbar, there are two options. One is to decrease indent; the other is to increase indent. I'll click Increase indent, and you will notice it indents the left side of the paragraph but does not indent the right side. If I click a second time, we have another indention. Click Decrease indent, and it moves back to the left margin.
To create a bulleted list, you can either key each line of the list unformatted and assign bullets or assign bullets as you type. In the first illustration, we are using an unformatted list. Select the lines that are to be bulleted. Click Bullets on the formatting toolbar, and bullets are assigned. In this list, we have sublevels. Under "Margins," we want to further indent "Left and right margins" and "Top and bottom margins." To do so, click on the Increase Indent button. The material is indented and a different bullet is assigned. To change back to the original bullet level, click Decrease Indent. I'll click increase because I do not want to change those. You may change the appearance of bullets by selecting the bulleted list. Click on Format, Bullets and Numbering. Click the bulleted tab, and you have a variety of choices of bullets. I'll select the four-dot bullet here and click OK. You will notice that the bullets have changed. Another method of creating bullets is to assign bullets as you type material. Touch Enter to create a new line. Click Bullets. Enter. In this case, I want a second level bullet, so I will click Increase Indent. When I Enter, notice that the same level bullet is created. Touch Enter. Now I want to go back to the first level bullet, so I will click Decrease Indent. I would continue typing. Either method is equally adequate.
To create a numbered list, you may either create each line of the list unformatted or assign numbers as you key the list. In this illustration, we will use the unformatted list. Select the material to which numbering should be assigned. Then click on the Numbering button. You will notice that 1, 2, 3, 4 is assigned. Lines 2 and 3 need to be further indented because they are subcategories. Select the two lines and click on Increase Indent. To return a line to the previous level, click within the line and click Decrease Indent. I'll click Increase Indent because this one should be a sublevel bullet. Styles can be assigned to numbers. Click on Format, Bullets and Numbering. There are two tabs, a numbered list which assigns only first-level numbers, and an outline numbered tab. I'll use the outline numbered list to choose a style because I have sublevels. This should assign a number to the first level with a parenthesis, a letter with a parenthesis, and again a lowercase letter. Click OK. You will notice my list has a parenthesis for the style rather than a period. To assign numbers as you key text, touch the Enter key. Click Numbering, and then key the text. Touch Enter. I want a second-level number so I will click Increase Indent. Touch Enter and the same level is displayed. Touch the Enter key. To return to the first level, click Decrease Indent and continue typing the list. Either method is equally adequate.
To set tabs, first display the ruler bar. Click on View, Ruler. The ruler displays at the top of the screen. Select the tab type, then click the blue line on the bar to set a tab. Normally, the left tab is displayed. With it chosen, we will set a left tab at "1" by click below the number one on the blue line. To change tab types, click the Tab button that indicates type. This is a center tab. This is a right-align tab meaning the material will align to the right of the tab. This is a decimal tab. I want to set a decimal tab at 3.5 inches. So with that tab type selected, I will click 3.5 on the ruler bar. Notice the rotation of the tab type. By simply clicking, you can choose the type of tab that you want. We have a left tab set here, and a decimal tab. I'll touch the Tab key and type some text. Notice that when I tab, I am going to the location of the tab. This is a decimal tab so at the point that I key a decimal, the material will go to the right of the tab location. The material is aligned around a tab. The tab type that you will most often use will be the left tab. To remove a tab, you can click on the tab and drag it off of the tab line. For the line selected, that tab will not be set. I can drag this off. Now, if I were to have my cursor on a line where the tab is set and I drag it off, you will notice that the material moves because tabs are not longer set. It goes back to the default tabs which are one-half inch tabs. I'll click on Edit, Undo tabs to return the tab to the line where I had it set. Note that tabs are assigned to particular lines. If I click on this line before I set a tab, you do not see tabs on your ruler bar. When I click on the line where tabs had been set, the tabs will display on the ruler bar. But down on the next line where I removed tabs, they will not display. So each line is assigned a tab.
In Microsoft Word, there are two types of page breaks. One is an automatic page break indicated by the dashed line that you see here Once a page has enough lines to fill the page, Microsoft Office inserts that page break. You can insert a manual page break by clicking at the point where you are to end a page. Click the Control key and touch Enter. The difference in the appearance is that this has the term "page break" with it. That displays only if you are in normal view, as you see here at the lower left corner of the screen. If I change to print layout, you can see that this is the automatic page break. At this point I entered the manual page break, and it created page 3. This is the type page break that you would use before you start a "Works Cited" page.
To add a header or footer to your report, you will click on View and select Header and Footer. This will allow you to place your name and a page number at the right margin for an MLA report. Select the Align Right button, and then we will key the name, space one time, and then you will insert a page number. If you click the Insert Page Number icon on the header and footer toolbar, it not only inserts the number "1," it will create a header with "2" on page 2, "3" on page 3. Note that the font is not the same as the document. I am going to select the font. We can choose Format, Font. This document is typed in a Times Roman font with a 10-point font for the size. I'll click OK. Now it will match the document. Close the header and footer toolbar, and you will note that you will see the header displayed. It will display on each page of the document. If it does not display, check to see that you are in Print Layout view by clicking the Print Layout button at the lower left corner of the screen. If you need to edit the header, you may do so by clicking on the header and making any changes desired. Close after making editing changes.