How to perfectly align your text using Tab Stops in Microsoft Word

How to use tab stops in Microsoft Word. This video demonstrates how to use Tab Stops while designing a table of contents. This a powerful layout tool that every word user should know. See how you can put the dots automatically in your TOC and align everything. This is a great tool.

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adding tabs + tab stops can make your
life a lot easier especially in creating
things such as a table of contents a tab
stop basically is aligning somewhere on
the ruler that will allow you to press
the tab key and align the text up with
that tab stop now tab stops there's a
couple of types that you can have you
can have a left the line tab stop which
is this L right here
and what that does is it will align the
text to the left but text will be on the
right hand side aligned to the left of
the text click here you can see there's
a perpendicular sign this will Center
align the text wherever you put this
marker that means that text whatever the
word is will be aligned to the center of
wherever this marker is and then you
have right aligned which what what this
will do is it will bump up the text
right up to that point where you put it
on the ruler
you also have a dotted decimal alignment
which will allow you to align numbers
based on the decimal
we're going to click back through and go
to the first one left align the black l
to add in a tab stop
simply click up on the ruler where you
want your tab stop to be your ruler is
not shown
click on View and then check ruler
so now what we're going to do is click
let's go ahead and add a tab stop on
going to highlight this paragraph and
we're going to create tab stop at four
inches
I simply click on the ruler this el
appears
if I want to move it if I didn't get it
right where I wanted i can click on the
l drag it to the right or drag it to the
left you can see that - line shows me
where this tab stop is going to be so I
go ahead i'm going to leave it up four
inches
click my cursor in between chapter 1 and
page one
i press the tab key and this aligns the
text right up with that . if i change
the type of tab stuff I have
for example in this paragraph i'm going
to change this tab stop instead of a
left the line i'm going to change it to
a right align to do that
I double click on the tab stop it brings
up the tab options
it's showing me i'm at the forage tab
position
it's a left the line i'm going to change
it to a write a line
select ok now when I press the tab key
it's now aligned up to the right on this
tab stop
so the text is aligned pushing to the
right or it's on the left hand side
going to do this once more i'm going to
click in between chapter 3 and page 26
double-click on my tab stop if you click
below it won't do it
I double click on the tab stop it brings
up this option i'm going to change it to
a center line
i click ok now i press the tab key and
you can see this one is aligned to the
center of that this one is aligned on
the left hand side but it's pushed up to
the right
this is called write a line and this one
is a left the line you can remember
because of the black l and it's busted
right up next to it right there to get
rid of the tab stops
make sure your selected in the paragraph
four in the line that the tab stop is in
click and just drag the tab stop off and
it will disappear and remove your tab
stop
so I'm going to remove each of my tab
stops what I want to do is add in a tab
stop with a . leader to add in the tab
stop i can click up here and click on
the ruler or from my home tab I can go
to the paragraph panel and i'm going to
click on the twirl out menu which gives
me a paragraph options you can see that
here i'm going to click down on the tabs
button the taps button now shows me all
of the options i have for the tab and I
want to make this tab at exactly five
inches
i'm going to type that in there and i
want to add a . leader which means
there's going to be a lot of dots or
periods in between the chapter and the
page that it's found on so i'm going to
go ahead and click ok and you can see
this . leader is applied if i delete
that I press the tab key it will
automatically push my texts all the way
to this tab stop and put in the periods
it doesn't matter if i change the amount
of texts i have it will automatically
update
how many dots are in the . leader so
this is something really nice in
Microsoft Word is having a . leader
using tabs to your documents
now if i want this . leader on each want
to be the same
I simply select them click up on the
tour lot menu for paragraph
click down on tabs and I make them all
at five inches with the . leader
click OK now these ones didn't work
because i have not press tab yet
I press tab Oh looks like there's one
already created there let me delete that
press tab
there's one there so we delete that and
press tab and there you have it
you have a fancy-looking table of
contents