Trouble adjusting indent of first line of paragraph in long word document. I have followed the instructions on Microsoft's site, but this produces on partial results.

Ideally, practically, you should be using styles for your formatting. What you are experiencing is a symptom of failure to do this.

• The Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word

Create a style based on the formatting of a paragraph that is appropriately formatted.

Apply that style to the paragraphs you want formatted the same way.

• You can use a keyboard shortcut to apply a style. Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Word 2007-2021 (365)

Ctrl+A will select the entire document.

Please pay attention to what everyone else is telling you about using styles. When applied consistently, they will save you a huge amount of time. If you change your mind about the size indent you want, you have only to modify the style, and all the paragraphs in that style will be updated.

Word has two built-in styles that I use for this purpose: Body Text and Body Text First Indent. I modify left-aligned heading styles to be followed by Body Text and Body Text to be followed by Body Text First Indent. By default, Body Text First Indent has a 0.15" indent in Word 2003 and the more reasonable 0.25" in current versions. Both styles also have some Spacing After, which you will want to remove if you are using indented paragraphs.

Note that Word does not create indents using spaces but using inches or centimeters (whichever unit of measurement you have selected. You select the desired indent in the Paragraph dialog:

Hi Bob C,

Thanks for contacting us, to fix your indentation issue, you can try one or more of the following steps:

Apply a consistent style to all your paragraphs, except the first paragraph in each chapter. You can do this by selecting all your paragraphs and choosing a style from the Style group on the Home tab of the ribbon. You can also create a new style or modify an existing style to suit your preferences. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/indent-the-first-line-of-a-paragraph-b3721167-e1c8-40c3-8a97-3f046fc72d6d

Remove any manual indentation from your paragraphs, except the first paragraph in each chapter. You can do this by selecting all your paragraphs and clicking on the Decrease Indent button on the Home tab of the ribbon until there is no indentation left. You can also use the Paragraph dialog box to set the indentation to zero for all your paragraphs https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/adjust-indents-and-spacing-in-word-dd821599-b731-4c29-be3c-d854a705e086.

Remove any tab characters from your paragraphs, except the first paragraph in each chapter. You can do this by selecting all your paragraphs and pressing Ctrl+H to open the Find and Replace dialog box. In the Find what box, type ^t (this represents a tab character). In the Replace with box, leave it blank. Click on Replace All to remove all tab characters from your paragraphs.

I hope these steps help you adjust the indent of the first line of paragraph in your long word document.

Warm Regards, Sola.

Sola,

Thanks for your prompt nd thorough response. I am in my 80s and not very sophisticated about word processing, i.e. not sure what a tab is. However, I will follow your instructions and let you know what happens.

Gratefully,

Bob