How can I make Tab and Shift+Tab tab multiple lines.

users
#1

The Tab key indents single lines only. But when I highlight a few lines and
press Tab I would like it if a tab was added to every line. Also Shift+Tab
should delete the tab.

Thanks!

#2

Whenever you use software, you need to play along with it, not fight with it to try to achieve what you need. Are you perhaps thinking of your word processor as a glorified typewriter? If you add a tab character at the beginning of a number of lines of a paragraph, you would get a mess: what had previously been at the start of each line would no longer be so and your new gaps would be in unpredictable places, not at the beginning of lines. In any case, when you later modified the text of the paragraph, once again a mess would ensue.

The few lines you want to indent will probably be a paragraph.
o Put the cursor into the paragraph and go to Format | Paragraph... | Indents & Spacing | Indent (or right-click | Paragraph... | Indents & Spacing | Indent.)
o Increase "Before text" to a suitable value.

Alternatively you can modify not the paragraph but the paragraph style, by going to right-click | Edit Paragraph Style... | Indents & Spacing | Indent instead. This will affect all paragraphs with the same style, and you can easily apply the style at a stroke to other paragraphs as required later.

There is a default paragraph style called "Text body indent" which may serve your purpose.
o Go to Format | Styles and Formatting or press the Styles and Formatting button in the Formatting toolbar or press F11.
o Select the Paragraph Styles button in the Styles and Formatting window.
o Put the cursor in the relevant paragraph and double-click "Text body indent".
You can easily modify this style if the amount of indent doesn't serve your purpose.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#3

There are also "Increase Indent" and "Decrease Indent" selections available on the "Formatting" toolbar.

From the menu, select "View", "Toolbars", and make sure "Formatting" is checked. I don't remember if the "Increase Indent" and "Decrease Indent" icons are visible by default or not. (The pictures are both a triangle arrowhead beside several lines representing text.) If you don't see them, then again select "View", "Toolbars", then "Customize".

From the toolbar dropdown list, select "Formatting". Then, in the

"Commands" box, scroll down not quite to the bottom to find "Increase Indent" and "Decrease Indent", and put a checkmark beside them.

Each time you hit "Increase Indent", it indents the current paragraph by the distance of one tab stop. As you continue typing and hitting "Enter" to start the next paragraph, that indention stays in effect until you change it again.

I use these a lot when I'm typing up informal notes.

-- Tim