What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

By using tab stops in your document, you can create uniformly spaced text. And, unlike if you were to just enter a bunch of spaces to separate text, tabs ensure your text remains properly aligned. Each time you press the Tab key, the cursor moves to the next tab stop. By default, Word has left tab stops set at every half-inch, but you can create your own tab stops in a specific position or change the location of the existing tab stops.

Enable Formatting Marks and the Ruler

Before you start adjusting tab stops, make sure to turn on both formatting marks and the ruler. The formatting marks make it easy to see what's going on in your document, especially when it comes to tabs. The ruler is necessary to easily add, move, and remove tab stops.

  1. Click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Home tab.

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

  2. Each space is represented by a dot (·) each pilcrow (¶) is a new paragraph, and each arrow (→) is a tab.

  3. Click the View tab.
  4. Click the Ruler checkbox in the Show group.

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

Set a Tab Stop Using the Ruler

  1. Select the text you want to align.
  2. Select the type of tab stop you want to use.
  3. The tab icon at the upper-left shows the type of tab that's active. If you want something else, click the icon to cycle through the available options.

  4. Click on the ruler where you want to place the tab stop.

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

The tab stop is added and everything after the tab is aligned to it.

Set a Custom Tab Stop

If you want to create an additional tab at an exact location, you can use a custom tab stop.

  1. Click the Home tab.
  2. Click the Paragraph dialog box launcher.

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

  3. Click Tabs.
  4. Type a tab stop position.
  5. Select the type of tab stop you want to use in the Alignment section.
  6. You can set a tab leader here, which is a series of dots, dashes, or line that extends across the empty space added by a tab. These are very helpful when you need to line up information across multiple lines, like in a directory or table of contents.

  7. Click Set.
  8. The tab stop is added. You can repeat the process to add more tab stops.

  9. Click OK.

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

The tab stops you set are added to the selected paragraph.

Click the Clear button in the Tabs dialog box to remove a single tab stop or click the Clear All button to remove all tab stops.

Move or Remove a Tab Stop

You can adjust a tab stop directly from the ruler, moving it to a new position or removing it entirely.

  1. Click and drag a tab stop along the ruler to reposition it.
  2. As you drag a tab stop to a new position on the ruler, the text affected by that tab stop will move with it.

  3. Click and drag a tab stop off the ruler to remove it.

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

Removing a tab stop will shift the text over to the next tab stop. If another tab stop isn’t set, the text will instead use the default half-inch tab spacing.

What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?

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    • What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
    • Minnesota State Community and Technical College via Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project

    Tabs allow users to align text vertically at a specific location in a document.  A tab stop is a point on the horizontal ruler that indicates the location at which to align text. A tab stop is a location where the insertion point will stop when the user presses the 

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
     key. Tab stops can be used to help align text to create columns of data. Custom defined tab stops are displayed on the ruler above the document. A set of default tab stops are located every half inch, but they do not appear on the ruler. When a new tab stop is defined, Word automatically removes the default tab stops to the left. Using tabs, users can align text to the left, right, or center of a tab stop, or text can be aligned at a decimal point. Word stores paragraph formatting, such as tab stops, in the paragraph marks at the end of a paragraph. Therefore, when the user pressing the ENTER key, tab stops are copied to the next paragraph. The same tab stops can then be used in sequential paragraphs to create columns of text. Tabs can be set by clicking on the horizontal ruler, or by using the Tabs dialog window. The following icons represent different tab stops on the horizontal ruler:

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
    Tab stop icons

    Each type of tab stop is used in the example shown below. Note the markers on the ruler:

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
    Inserted tab stops

    The default tab stop is Left, but tab stops can easily be switched by multi-clicking the tab selector 

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
     on the horizontal ruler. Existing tab stops on the ruler can be dragged to a new position if needed. To remove a tab stop, drag the tab stop off the ruler and release the mouse. The text will realign itself to the existing tab stops. Once the tab stops are in set, newly inserted text will align to the stops when the tab key is pressed. Alternatively, some users prefer to enter text with tabs, but without tab stops, and then apply the tab stops to the existing text.

    The Tabs dialog window is useful for adding new, and editing existing tab stops. 

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
    Tabs dialog

    The window can be opened by double-clicking an existing tab stop or by clicking the Tabs… button in the Paragraph Dialog window, which is opened from the Paragraph Launcher button. The Tabs window is useful for precise position definitions, and it is the only option for adding Leaders to tab stops. A tab leader is a character that is repeated to fill the space spanned by a tab. The dotted leader is very commonly used on menus to make it easier to associate the menu description with its correlating price.  The Tabs window is also a convenient way to clear one or all tab stops in a document.

    Practice 3: Wine Prices – Part 1

    1. Open the data file Wines unformatted.docx from your data files.
    2. Insert two blank paragraphs at the beginning of the document.
    3. Select the text Name in the first paragraph. Apply the Arial font, size 12, bold and red text color.
    4. Use the Format Painter tool to apply the same formatting from Name to Country, Color, Year, Type and Price. Hint: Double-click the Format Painter after placing the cursor in Name, and then click each the headings. Click the Format Painter tool again to turn it off.
    5. Select the text starting with Name through $16.99. Click the Paragraph Launcher button and then click the Tabs… button to open the Tabs dialog window.
    6. Set the following five tab stops:
      1. Center tab stop at the 1.5” position. (Type 1.5 in the Tab stop position field, then click Center, then click Set.)
      2. Left tab stop at the 2.15” position.
      3. Right tab stop at the 3” position.
      4. Center tab stop at the 3.75” position.
      5. Decimal tab stop at the 6” position. Add a dotted leader before clicking Set. Then click OK.
    7. A slight error may be noticeable. If you enable the Show/Hide 
      What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
      , you should notice that there are two tabs between Country and Color. Remove one of the tabs. This should align the data into neat columns.
    8. Select the same block of text as step 5. Remove the 8 pt of paragraph spacing After each paragraph via the Layout tab.
    9. At the top of the document enter the text: Wine Prices. Center-align the paragraph, and make the font 36pt and bold.
    10. Save the file with a new name: Tab formatted Wine Prices.docx.

    Your file should look like this:

    What is a mark on the ruler that indicates the location where the insertion point will be placed when you press the Tab key?
    Solution to Practice - Part 3

    What is a mark that indicates the location to indent only the first line in a paragraph?

    To indent using the Tab key This will create a first-line indent of 1/2 inch. Place the insertion point at the very beginning of the paragraph you want to indent.

    What is an icon located at the left side of the ruler that enables you to set a left indent a hanging indent or a first line indent?

    Move your mouse cursor to the two triangles on the left of the horizontal ruler. These are indent markers. The top triangle represents the first line indent marker. It is known as the left indent marker.

    Which key is used to indent?

    To indent the first line of a paragraph, put your cursor at the beginning of the paragraph and press the tab key. When you press Enter to start the next paragraph, its first line will be indented.

    What is a bar tab in Word?

    A Bar tab stop doesn't position text. It inserts a vertical bar at the tab position. Unlike other tabs, the bar tab is added to the text as soon as you click the ruler. If you don't clear the bar tab stop before you print your document, the vertical line is printed.