Hanging indent?

[Jean Barto]

Hi--

I'm starting to do some research papers, and have had trouble setting a
"hanging indent" for footnotes and bibliography entries. I'm sure there's a
way to do this, but it's not obvious to me.

Hopefully someone here on the newsgroup can tell me where to look, etc.

I'm using Word 2004, with the latest OS 10.4--on an original flat panel iMac
(800 MHz), with 1 gig RAM.

Thanks,

Jean in VA

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Jean,

The short answer is: Format>Paragraph>Indents & Spacing> and under
Indentation, click on the double arrows next to the Special box and choose
Hanging.

The longer answer is: You really should learn how to set styles for each
type of paragraph you will need to use. That's the very best way to assure
consistent formatting for your documents. Look up Styles in the Word Help
for starters and when you have the time, download Clive Huggan's "Bend Word
To Your Will" here: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Bend/BendWord.htm>.
(If using Safari, you'll have to click Refresh a couple times; easier to use
a different browser.)

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi,
there are two ways you can do this:

1) use the ruler. If the ruler is visible, you should see three blue icons
on it, one triangle pointing downwards, one triangle pointing upwards and a
blue box. Select your text, then drag the lower triangle on the ruler to the
right. That will create a hanging indent.

2) use the Format Paragraph menu. Select your text, go to Format>Paragraph.
In the Indentation section of the window that shows up, click on the Special
dropdown list and select "Hanging". Enter a value in the textfield right
next to it.

Since you're going to do some research papers, you should take the time to
learn how to use styles in Word documents. You'll benefit from that, and you
will be able to set up a paragraph style for your bibliography/footnotes so
that the hanging indent will be applied quasi automatically. Have a look at
this website for a good introduction:

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/

Note that even though this website keeps making references to the Windows
version of Word, most things will also apply to the Mac version.

Michel

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Beth,

looks like you were several minutes faster than me. Strangely enough, we
seem to have written nearly identical answers, starting from the paragraph
formatting down to the suggestion to learn how to use styles. Uncanny...

Michel

 

[Beth Rosengard]

As I said the last time this happened, not so long ago ... Great minds think
alike ;-).

Beth

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Jean in VA,

Further to Beth's post (and thank you both -- this prompted me to look at my
master copy of "Bend Word to Your Will" and improve my coverage of
footnotes).

You'll have found that Word inserts a space after the footnote reference
number when it opens the footnote window, Jean. If you just start typing
after this space, the result is quite untidy, because the footnote number is
contained within the left footnote text margin. The answer is to specify a
style for footnotes that includes a hanging indent. If you do so, you will
probably want to delete the space that follows the footnote number before
keying a tab followed by the text of the footnote (although if you have
specified generous spacing for the hanging indent you could leave the space
and simply key in the tab).

My set of specs for footnotes which includes the hanging indent and has the
footnote ref number on the same baseline as the footnote text is as follows
(for text in Times New Roman -- slight changes are necessary in other fonts
such as Arial):

[the style you base everything else on -- Normal for many people, but most
document professionals don't make it Normal] + font 10 pt, raised by 3 pt,
indent left 0 cm, hanging 0.53 cm, line spacing at least 12 pt, space before
6 pt.

More is on page 140 of "Bend Word to Your Will" as per Beth's post. An intro
to styles starts on page 79.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. Be sure to read
the front end so you can use the document to best advantage and select the
right settings for reading it.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
in Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 7 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[Elliott Roper]

Hello Jean in VA,

Further to Beth's post (and thank you both -- this prompted me to look at my
master copy of "Bend Word to Your Will" and improve my coverage of
footnotes).

I thought it would be a good time to clean up my footnote text style
too, so I went back to Bend..

You'll have found that Word inserts a space after the footnote reference
number when it opens the footnote window, Jean. If you just start typing
after this space, the result is quite untidy, because the footnote number is
contained within the left footnote text margin. The answer is to specify a
style for footnotes that includes a hanging indent. If you do so, you will
probably want to delete the space that follows the footnote number before
keying a tab followed by the text of the footnote (although if you have
specified generous spacing for the hanging indent you could leave the space
and simply key in the tab).

My set of specs for footnotes which includes the hanging indent and has the
footnote ref number on the same baseline as the footnote text is as follows
(for text in Times New Roman -- slight changes are necessary in other fonts
such as Arial):

[the style you base everything else on -- Normal for many people, but most
document professionals don't make it Normal] + font 10 pt, raised by 3 pt,
indent left 0 cm, hanging 0.53 cm, line spacing at least 12 pt, space before
6 pt.

I could not make the raised thing work in the style definition in Word
2004. Raising the text in there raised the number as well.

My grizzle was both the size of the footnote number and its alignment.
There does not seem to be any way of changing that and the unwanted
space on a permanent basis. It is as though Word has formatted it 'by
hand'. That is close to a design mishap. There is a footnote reference
character style, but Word just 'pulls on the superscript button from
behind the screen' to format the number in the footnote itself. There
should be a footnote number character style to match.
Which led me to a neat workaround. Select all the footnotes and hit
'normal for style' aka ctrl-space. Proper sized footnote numbers
aligned with the text. It is not the proper way to set footnote
numbers, but it suits me fine. If you set footnotes smaller than body,
and then superscript the footnote number, the numbers come out too
small, although hanging them is a huge improvement.

I might experiment with a 'fix footnote' macro to do a whole document
in bulk if I can't find a way to convince Word to set the footnote
numbers better and to forget about inserting the space.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Clive Huggan <[email protected]> wrote:

[the style you base everything else on -- Normal for many people, but most
document professionals don't make it Normal] + font 10 pt, raised by 3 pt,
indent left 0 cm, hanging 0.53 cm, line spacing at least 12 pt, space before
6 pt.

I could not make the raised thing work in the style definition in Word
2004. Raising the text in there raised the number as well.

My grizzle was both the size of the footnote number and its alignment.
There does not seem to be any way of changing that and the unwanted
space on a permanent basis. It is as though Word has formatted it 'by
hand'. That is close to a design mishap. There is a footnote reference
character style, but Word just 'pulls on the superscript button from
behind the screen' to format the number in the footnote itself. There
should be a footnote number character style to match.
Which led me to a neat workaround. Select all the footnotes and hit
'normal for style' aka ctrl-space. Proper sized footnote numbers
aligned with the text. It is not the proper way to set footnote
numbers, but it suits me fine. If you set footnotes smaller than body,
and then superscript the footnote number, the numbers come out too
small, although hanging them is a huge improvement.

I might experiment with a 'fix footnote' macro to do a whole document
in bulk if I can't find a way to convince Word to set the footnote
numbers better and to forget about inserting the space.

I have to confess. I lied.
The footnote number in the footnote does come with "Footnote Reference"
character style. Somehow I mis-selected one when writing my rant above.
That mental picture of a horrid little paperclip scrabbling at the
superscript button from inside the machine just ain't true. It's off
inserting an unbidden space.

 

[Elliott Roper]

I did all this in Word 2001 and it all came over to 2004.

Does that mean you ended up with the footnote text raised 3 points and the
"downstairs" footnote ref number by 6 points? In mine the footnote text is
raised 3 points to match the ref number.
exactly.

Hmm,

The footnote ref number is presumably raised 3 points at the bottom of the
page because that's what it's raised by in the body text.

Yes. I later discovered that the number in the footnote did have
"footnote reference" character style.

The space is in there because the same person who coded *both* instances at
"raised by 3 points" had to get out to lunch that day and hasn't been back
since. I reported it to MacBU in 2001, but I suspect it's in the WinOffice
area that it has to be changes.

And yes, I can't believe either that a serious word processor can't provide
correct formatting of footnotes out of the box ...

FYI, my sequence for inserting footnotes is as follows (I'm working in
Normal view):

Command-Option-f to insert a footnote reference number (a default IIRC)
Delete (which I do without thinking now)
Tab
Type the footnote
Control-Shift-c to close the footnote pane (a default IIRC).

Ooh, thanks for ctrl-shift-c. I didn't know that.

Close? Watch out, Elliott -- wanton rosiness like that is dangerously
Panglossian ;-)

In this "Best of all possible Words"?

Sorry Beth, Clive likes to play straight man. He sets 'em up, I knock
'em down.

Thanks, Elliott. I've just added that comment in "Bend Word" for people who
want the downstairs footnote ref number the same size as the footnote text.

I lied, as you now know. Both numbers are in "footnote reference"
character style.

I think it would have been nicer to have a separate character style for
the number in front of the footnote. Then we could have had the control
we needed. Of course a tab instead of the space would have met the
needs of users that had heard of hanging indents.

Now that would be useful!

I'll put it on the list.

Look at that! First Voltaire, now Gilbert and Sullivan!