batguebi01: Change Default Bullet List format in Word

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Change Default Bullet List format in Word

Changing the default for bulleted lists in Word is neither intuitive nor obvious.

I use Word 2008 as my main text editor. Somewhere along the way, the default style for the bulleted list that arises when you click the bullet icon in the toolbar got completely mangled. The first line was indented a full inch, while subsequent lines in the bullet point were indented an inch and a half. Ugly. I finally figured out the process for changing the default bullet format and I'm sharing in case anybody else has the same issue. I'm assuming similar steps would apply in Word 2004 and 2011, but I don't have them and don't know.

In a new, blank document, Choose 'Bullets and Numbering' from the Format menu
Click on the first option under the 'Bulleted' tab and click the 'Customize' button
Choose the options you want for type of bullet, font, indent, etc. (I use Bullet position of 'indent at .25' and text position of 'indent at 0.38,' but you may ...