default bullet indent 2007

[Hayley]

Is it possible to set the default bullet to be left aligned rather than
indented. I can modify on the open document but when i close and open Word
again it has defaulted back. I have modified the normal.dotx styles but with
the same problems. Please help this small item is driving the company nuts.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Apply the built-in List Bullet style (which is defined with no left indent)
to text: Select the desired paragraphs, and then press Ctrl+Shift+S to
display the Apply Styles pane. Type "List Bullet," and then click Apply.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Hayley]

This works in the current document but i would like to modify the
normal.dotx. The bullet button on the ribbon bar is set to list paragraph
which sets the bullet at indent 0.63 and hanging of 0.63.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Note that List Bullet is a built-in style, so it is definitely available in
the Normal template. In any document, you can press Ctrl+Shift+L to apply
List Bullet to text.

Note also that you can modify the List Bullet style to suit your needs. To
change the indentation, just right-click a paragraph in this style, and
choose Adjust List Indent from the context menu. Change other settings, such
as font and size, as desired, by formatting the paragraph directly. Then
right-click again and click Style | Update List Bullet to Match Selection.

To transfer the changes to the attached template, right-click the style name
in the Styles pane (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S), click Modify. (If you can't see the
style name in the list of styles, you can click the Manage Styles button and
locate the style on the Edit tab instead.) In the dialog box, click the "New
documents based on this template" option, and then click OK.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Hayley]

Thanks Stefan - but that still does not fix the bullet button on the ribbon
toolbar. i.e the short cut Ctrl+Shift+L works a treat but getting our (non
keyboard) staff to use that instead of the bullet button (which they have
uses since the beginning of time) - well lets just not go there...

In Word 2003 you could customise the bullet (bullets and
numbering/customise) then set the tab and indent. Once Word was close down
and reopened it would remember this setting.

In Word 2007 you can Define New Bullet but the only thing you can set is the
alignment! Surely this can be modified somewhere

 

[Stefan Blom]

Well, you can customize the type of bullet, but, you are right: you are not
allowed to (permanently) change the indentation. (Note, however, that this
didn't work reliably in recent versions, either.)

A method that does allow you to customize the indentation is to apply bullet
formatting via a list style. You can create a list style via Home tab |
Multilevel List | Define New List Style. Just specify a bullet character for
the first level of "numbering." To change the indentation, you can click the
Increase Indent / Decrease Indent buttons in the dialog box or click the
Format button and then click Numbering to set specific options.

Any list style created can be (re-)applied to text, in the current document,
via Home tab | Multilevel List (look under the "List Styles" heading).

Note also that you can copy a list style, just like any other style, to a
different document or template.

 

[Stefan Blom]

(Note, however, that this
didn't work reliably in recent versions, either.)

Correction: This didn't work reliably in *older* versions, either.

Actually, the old Bullets and Numbering dialog box represented settings
chosen by the current user, and those settings did not necessarily look the
same on another user's computer. So using a style has always been required if
you want to safely reuse number or bullet formatting.

 

[Hayley]

Thanks Stefan - thats at least an answer - No you cant. Good ole Micro$oft.
Thanks for the work around but already have these in place. Just would be
nice to default the bullet button to stop some of the formatting time for our
Admin staff. Not everyone wont bullets indented at 0.63!!! Whilst the 'old'
version didn't work reliably at least they worked 98% of the time. As most of
our users dont touch settings when we copied over our generic normal.dot, it
stayed that way. With this version you cant even do that!! Very annoying.

What I find strange is that you can modify the bullet style, which by
default comes up as List Paragraph, to include a tab stop and line spacing
and the style will remember this but not the indentation or hanging settings.
Also if you apply a bullet then bring up the style (Ctrl, Shift, S) and
'reapply' the default List Paragraph Style it works!! So to me that is
telling me that it is set but Word cant apply all the settings properly. In
otherwords a GLITCH. Would be nice to think this would be fixed but I'm not
holding my breath.

Thanks for the reponses Stefan, not having a go at you, I just find these
little things very time consuming.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can add a button (with the same icon) to apply the List Bullet style,
but it won't (unless you put a macro behind it) be a toggle.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Or intercept the FormatBulletDefault command with this code (place it in
normal.dotm):

Sub FormatBulletDefault()
On Error GoTo errhandler
If Selection.Paragraphs(1).Style.NameLocal = _
ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleListBullet).NameLocal Then
Selection.Style = wdStyleNormal
Else
Selection.Style = wdStyleListBullet
End If

Exit Sub

errhandler:
Exit Sub
End Sub

For instructions, see http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm.