We are working in module 4.
We’re talking about paragraph formatting and we’re all the way down to section 4
where we’re going to talk a little bit about working with tabs.
Microsoft Word has this great feature called Tabs which allow you when you hit the Tab
key to override that normal half inch.
It’s also going to allow you to set different types of tabs and leaders and things like
that.
So let me show you how the tabs work.
There are actually five different tabs and they each work a little different.
Before we go through each one let me just show you a little bit about a scenario that
you might have a reason to use tab for.
Look down at the bottom here and you’ll see that it looks like I have nice, neat columns
of names, addresses, amounts, and telephone numbers.
But it’s really not columns because this was set up using tabs.
I’m going to click inside any line here and when I do notice the tabs up on the ruler.
See these?
Also if I turn on the non-printing characters here I want you to see the tab indicator here.
So that’s how you know this was set up with tabs.
Now I want to go through each of the five with you so you can see how each one of these
works.
If you look at the top left here you’re going to see a little box with an L in it
and those are your tabs.
That L actually stands for a left aligned tab.
If I click there I’ll get a centered tab, the next one is a right aligned, the next
one is a decimal tab.
And the decimal tab helps you line up decimal points.
And the last one is a bar tab.
If I click two more times I’m going to see two indents and then I’ll cycle back through
my tabs.
So let’s talk about each one and how they work.
The first one is a left aligned tab.
I’m going to set it on my ruler at 2 inches.
Notice I just click there.
If you click too high or too low it won’t set it.
So just kind of know that.
You’ll see it there once it’s set.
The purpose of a tab is normally when I type something and I hit the Tab key I’m going
to stop at the next half inch on the ruler.
But I want it to override that.
So notice I’m going to hit the Tab key and I stop directly under the tab that I set.
Now let’s talk about the fact that it’s left aligned.
I’ll just type a little bit of junk in here.
I’m going to hit the Enter key and hit the Tab key.
You have to tab to get to the tab.
It’s not going to jump over there automatically.
If you happen to forget and you type some text just click at the beginning of that text
and tab over to it.
This is called a Left Align Tab because you’ll see that everything is nice and neat on the
left hand side and not on the right.
So if you think about our addresses down at the bottom here, addresses are always nice
and neat on the left but they’re not the same length.
So that’s a good example of a left aligned tab.
I’m going to leave this text and to delete the tab you’re going to click on the tab
itself from the ruler and drag it under the ruler.
Be careful because you could add an extra tab doing that that you didn’t mean to.
You can always undo, by the way.
The next tab is a center tab and this has nothing to do with centering on the page.
It means that I want to center underneath wherever I place the tab.
Let’s say I place it at 1-1/2 on the ruler or close to it.
Now that I’m here watch when I type it looks like there’s an invisible line and everything
is centered.
See that?
Can you think of a good example for a center tab?
What if you actually did have two real columns in Word and you wanted each column to have
text that’s centered?
That would be a good example of setting one in each column.
Alright I’m going to delete this, get rid of my tab.
Now the next one I want to show you is a right aligned tab.
I’m going to place it as far as I can to the right and notice when I tab this time
I’m going to tab all the way end of the ruler, under the tab.
And notice that when I type I’m typing from right to left.
A good example of this is if you look down here at our telephone numbers they’re nice
and flush on the right hand side.
See that?
That’s because there’s a right aligned tab set there.
Now let me go ahead and delete that and I’m going to delete this tab as well.
The next one I want to show you is a decimal tab.
Wherever you set the decimal tab you’re going to type in numbers with decimal points
and it’s going to line up the decimal points for you.
So it’s not necessarily money.
It’s decimal points.
They’re going to line up perfect every single time when you do this.
Okay?
Now the last one is what we call a Bar Tab and I’ll show you how that one works.
It’s just a straight line over here.
And let’s say I set it at 2-1/2 inches.
Notice the vertical line here?
So when I type my text and I hit the Enter key the line will expand.
See that?
Be careful because if you keep on typing it will let you type over the line.
So a good example of this might be I see a lot of resumes that have on the left the dates,
then they’ll have vertical line and on the right they’ll have information.
So let me go ahead and delete this and then I’ll show you how I did that scenario down
at the bottom.
Alright so I’ve gotten rid of all my tabs and I’m all the way back to the left here.
I know that I’d like to have four columns or so it looks like.
The first one I won’t need a tab but I will need one to get over to the address.
A left aligned tab is probably the best one for that because it’s going to line my addresses
up nice and neat on the left hand side.
I’m probably going to need one for the amount.
So I’ll go find a decimal tab and I’ll set that one at 4 inches.
And then one more.
I want to set that telephone number column so it looks like it lines up nice and neat
on the right hand side like that.
So see how you can have multiple tabs?
I’m going to go ahead and put in my headings.
So I’m going to have Name and I’m going to tab over to the Address.
I’m going to hit Tab again.
I’m going to type in Amount.
And one more time and it’s going to say Telephone.
Now my next line I’m going to type in my names.
So I’ve got Carol Davis.
Carol’s address is 123 Oak Street.
Her amount was $25.61 and her phone number had no area code.
It was 555-8967.
Enter.
John Max.
I’m going to tab over.
He lives at 456 Tree Lane South.
His amount is $14.51 and the phone number is (843) 645-8976.
And one more.
I have Douglas Hennis, 1256 Rivers Avenue, the amount is $5.50, phone number (704) 698-3258.
Now if something like this happens to you, let’s say I was here and I accidentally
just hit Tab again and it looks all weird.
Turn on your non-printing characters to see what you did.
If you notice you have a tab right in front of the 3258.
So all you have to do is backspace over it and it’ll bring it back up where it needs
to be.
So don’t worry if it looks out of place.
You can always turn on your non-printing characters and check out what you’ve done.
It looks like nice, neat columns.
Right?
Have you ever noticed especially in the front of a book, this is a good example, they’ll
have the Table of Contents and the Table of Contents will have Carol Davis and this it
goes dot, dot, dot, dot, dot all the way to the 123 Oak Street?
Those dots are called Leaders.
Leaders lead up to a tab.
Let me show you how to set those.
I’m going to select these three lines.
Now the way you’re going to get into the actual options for the tabs, you can actually
double click the ruler or if you click on the arrow next to the Paragraph grouping you’ll
see Tabs right down here at the bottom.
Here are the three tabs that I’ve set and you’ll notice that when I click on each
one it tells me that the alignment in this case is left an there’s no leader.
I have three choices when it comes to leaders.
I can have dots, dashes or a straight line.
I’ll choose number two and I’m going to Set.
And you have to do that for each one.
Now let me do this last one and set that one.
Now I’m going to click OK and there’s your leaders.
Even if I hit the Enter key and I typed a new name in, let’s say it was Tim Scott.
Notice when I hit the Tab key there’s my leaders.
It’s going to carry that forward.
Let me mention one more thing.
If you need to move a tab, let’s say that the Amount column I want to move it over for
some reason.
All I have to do is select the lines that use the tab.
That’s very important because if you don’t it’s only going to affect the line you’re
clicked on.
And I can click the tab and move it wherever I’d like it to be.
That way I have more room to put in my address.
So that’s how tabs work.
What I’d like to do now is go ahead and move over into the next section and we’re
going to talk quickly about styles before we wrap
up this module.
I’ll see you shortly.