Answered By: Kathryn Park
Last Updated: May 08, 2024     Views: 83250

In Word* 

  1. Highlight your bulleted list and right click.
  2. Select Adjust List Indents from the pop up menu.
  3. Under Follow number with: select Space and hit OK.
  4. Your bulleted list should now have a hanging indent. 

* This only works on installed version of Word, It is not available in Office 365, per Microsoft. COM students can access installed versions of Word on library lab computers. 

For multiple Citations in a References, Works Cited or Bibliography Page

  1. Once you've applied the hanging indent using the technique above, hit enter after your citation.
  2. If you are typing your citation it should keep the same formatting. If you are pasting in your citation, right click when you paste and select the paste as text option (looks like a A on clipboard) and Word will automatically apply all the formatting you've already done, including hanging indent, spacing, font, etc. Alternatively you could wait until all your citations are on your bib, highlight them all at once, then use the 5 steps as listed above.

Paste the text

Comments (13)

  1. OMG! I Love you! I have trying to line up my two lined bullets all morning. I have read help tabs, blogs, ate a pack of M&M's, paced back and forth from the back door to the kitchen and back about twenty times, ate two cans of tuna a hand full of lettuce, and was stressing because my wife will be home from work and I am, stuffed from stress eating and am still working on the same damn application form.............. OMG "CTRL-TAB"
    by Kevin on Sep 02, 2016
  2. This doesn't work with hyperlinked or underlined items.
    by Jeremy on Nov 07, 2016
  3. I tested this method with text including a hyperlink, and it worked. Remember that a hyperlink or URL is considered "one word", so it may end up on the next line. In that case, simply put your cursor in front of that line again and hit Ctrl + Tab one more time. I am using Word 2013.
    by Erin McDaniel on Nov 08, 2016
  4. If you're on a Mac, I found Function-Tab did the trick. Thanks to OP.
    by Michael Q on Mar 18, 2017
  5. I don't know why there are thumbs down for this, you've answered the question properly. I too was fiddling round with margins and all sorts knowing there was a much easier way but found it hard to find the right answer. And voila! You've given it to me! Thank you!
    by Sezzles on May 16, 2017
  6. Thank you so much. Worked beautifully. Been wasting time messing with this and searching for a solution. You are wonderful.
    by R Owens on Sep 28, 2017
  7. This is very awesome! and so simple. Like a previous reader I was stressing and eating sugar. Now at least part of my problems are handled. Thank you! I'm thinking that this post provides no new information to help anyone. My apologies to those who are not interested :-)
    by Steve in San Diego on Oct 03, 2018
  8. Very helpful answer, thank you!

    However, I am frustrated that Word does not provide a way to format the list to do this automatically. This is a very common format for bulleted lists.
    by Darryl Howard on Nov 30, 2018
  9. for bullets right click the buttlet select adjust indent change it to a space instead of a tab. Hanging should now work
    by William Mulcahey on Aug 02, 2019
  10. Thanks William Mulcahey, I've updated to include new instructions for Office 2016.
    by Kathryn Park on Sep 16, 2019
  11. Thank you so much. You saved me a lot of time.
    by Maynor Hernández on Apr 24, 2020
  12. This does not work if your references are in bullet point list format.
    by Luke Stickler on Apr 26, 2024
  13. @Luke Stickler, This only works on installed version of Word, It is not available in Office 365, per Microsoft. I have updated the answer to include this information.
    by COM Librarian on May 08, 2024

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