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Word 2007 Practice: Work with Tabs

A Little Exercise with Tabs

1. Open Word, or start a new document.
2. Make sure the Tab button is on Left.
3. Click the 1″ mark on the ruler; you should see the left tab.
4. Click on the Tab button to change the tab type to Center.
5. Click at the 3″ mark to place a center tab.
6. Click on the Tab button to change the tab type to Right.
7. Click at the 5.5″ mark to place a right tab.
8. Now you’re going to type in a little something to see the tabs work:
   Push Tab on your keyboard, type Flavor, push Tab, type Color, push Tab, type Day, push Enter.
   Push Tab, type Chocolate, push Tab, type Brown, push Tab, type Saturday, push Enter.
   Push Tab, type Vanilla, push Tab, type White, push Tab, type Monday, push Enter.
   Push Tab, type Grape, push Tab, type Purple, push Tab, type Thursday, push Enter.

Take a look at what you typed. The first column lines up on the left side, under the Left tab at 1″. The middle column is centered under the Center tab, and the right side of the third column is lined up under the Right tab.

Moving Tabs

You can move a tab by clicking and dragging it to the left or right on the ruler. Notice that the middle column would look better moved a little to the right. To delete a tab off the ruler by dragging it up or down.

1. Push Ctrl + A to select everything. (You’re doing this to be sure that changing the tab applies to everything you just typed.)
2. Click and hold on the center tab, drag the tab you set at 3” to 3.25”. You should see the entire middle column move to the right

If it all worked, you successfully set and used three kinds of tabs. This is the same technique you would use to have text on a single line on both the left and right side of the page.

One More Quick Tab Exercise – Dot Leaders

1. Click and set a left tab at 1″.
2. Click and set a right tab at 6″.
3. Open the Tab box. (Home tab, Paragraph group, open the Paragraph box, click Tab button.)
4. Under Tab stop position:, highlight the 6″ tab. Under Leader click the dot by 2….. and click OK.
5. Now type: push Tab, type your name, push Tab, type your title, push Enter.
6. You should see the dots leading from your name to your title. As you Enter and keep typing, every line will have the same tabs.

If that worked, it means you have successfully set used a dot leader tab.

For more information see: The Ruler: Margins and Indents and Tabs, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

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