Hanging Indent Shortcut: MS Word

A hanging indent is created when the first line of the paragraph starts at the start of the left margin, but the second and subsequent lines are indented. Hanging indents are a very common format used in many documents because it coordinates information.

In MS Word, you can initiate a hanging indent by pressing CTRL+T on your keyboard. This "hangs" a paragraph to the next tab stop. If there are no previously defined tab stops in the paragraph, Word indents to the next default tab stop (typically in one-half inch intervals). Each press of the shortcut (CTRL+T) indents the paragraph one more tab stop to the right. You can also use SHIFT+CTRL+T to undo the indent by one tab stop (to the left).

The hanging indent shortcut is rather generic in its effect, however. If you have different levels of hanging indents that you want to use in a document, it is much more efficient to create one or more "styles" than to define a hanging indent. Furthermore, you can assign keyboard shortcuts to your "styles" and use them to apply the desired formatting directly to the document (much like you would by pressing CTRL+T, for example).

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