Different Spacing in a Bulleted List: MS Word

Sometimes bulleted lists are difficult to read. When bullet items have more than two lines of text (which frequently happens when writing instructions), it would be nice to have bullets that are have more space between them. I find that as I age my ability to read items that are close together is lacking.

One way is to enter a bullet item, press enter (to go to the next bullet item), then press enter again, enter the text for the bullet item, and then return to the extra bullet and pressing Backspace to remove it. That seems like quite a few key strokes don't you think?

A better solution would be to create a style to take care of the issue.

Follow the easy steps below:

1. Enter the bullet list, one bullet after another. Do not bother with extra bullets to create double-spacing.
    
2. Select the bulleted items.
    
3. Use the Format | Styles and Formatting command from the main menu.
    
4. Click the New Style button at the top of the Styles and Formatting panel.
    
5. Create a new name for the bullet style. By default, Word will base your new style on the properties of the selected text (that is, the original bullet list).
    
6. Click on the Format button in the lower left corner of the dialog box.
    
7. Choose Paragraph from the drop-down list.
    
8. On the Indents and Spacing tab, find the Spacing section. Adjust the Before and After settings; I chose 4 points for each.
    
9. Click OK twice to set the bullet spacing.

Now you have a new bullet style that you can apply to all your documents whenever you need it.

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