Straight shooting: Using bullets in Office documents

Maybe it's our PowerPoint culture or maybe it's just the overflow of information we have coming at us each day. Whatever the reason, I've found that it's a lot easier to communicate with my co-workers if I boil my thoughts down into bullets.

But I've found that there are quirks to working with bullets in each of the major Office programs I use: Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In this tip, I'll share the issues I've encountered with each, and the solutions I've found for dealing with them. (Note: I found these solutions by searching through the Assistance content available at Office Online. If you've not used that resource, you may be missing one of the handiest things we offer on the Web!)

Word: Getting the formatting right

Bulleted or numbered lists make your documents more readable and visually interesting. Word has some automated features that simplify list-making — but sometimes the formatting doesn't work the way I expect it to. The following excerpts from the Office Online Assistance for Word cover the challenges I normally encounter.

1) When I make changes to the bullets or numbers in a list, not all the bullets or numbers change.
When you click a bullet or number in a list, all the items on that level of the list are selected. (You'll have different 'levels' of lists if you have one list inside another, such as when you're outlining a paper with first sections, then chapters, and then subheads.)

The bullet or number clicked is highlighted in dark gray, while the rest of the bullets or numbers in the list at that level are highlighted in light gray.

A bullet or number on the same level that is not highlighted is not a part of the list, even if it otherwise looks as though it is. Changes you make to the bullets or numbering in the rest of the list at that level will not affect the bullet or number that is not highlighted.

To make the bullet or number a part of the list, do the following:

• Place the insertion point into the text beside the bullet or number that is not highlighted, and then click the Bullets or Numbering icon on the Formatting toolbar. The bullet or number should now be highlighted.
• Select the entire list, click the Bullets or Numbering icon and then click the Bullets or Numbering icon again.

2) Bullet characters show as clock faces or empty boxes.
Bullets appear as clock faces: Unless you've selected a different font for the bullet, Microsoft Word uses the bullet character from the Symbol font. If the Symbol font is damaged or unavailable, Word substitutes the Wingdings font. In this font, the corresponding ASCII character is a clock face. Try reinstalling the Symbol font, or use the Bullets and Numbering command on the Format menu to select a different bullet character from the Wingdings font.

Bullets appear as empty boxes: When you create a bulleted list using the Marlett font, instead of inserting a single bullet, Word either inserts at least one box or inserts a bullet and a box character. To use a bullet character from the Marlett typeface, click Symbol (Insert menu), select the symbol you want, and then click Insert. You may need to adjust the text indentations. You can also use a different font to insert a bullet.

3) Every line is bulleted or numbered instead of just the first line.
To add text beneath a bulleted or numbered item in a list without adding a bullet or number, place the insertion point at the end of the list item and press SHIFT+ENTER. The new line indents and aligns with the text in the previous line. Add text, and then press SHIFT+ENTER again to create another indented line, or press ENTER to create another numbered or bulleted line.

4) I want to use different formats for the text and the bullets or numbers in my list items.
You can have bold bullets or numbers and plain text, or vice versa. To change the formatting of the bullets or numbers, click a bullet or number in the list, and then click the Bullets icon on the Formatting toolbar to make changes.

5) Paragraph indents disappear when I add or remove bullets or numbering.
When you do any of the following, Microsoft Word removes existing indents from paragraph text:

• Add bullets to indented and numbered paragraphs.
• Add numbering to indented and bulleted paragraphs.
• Remove bullets from indented and bulleted paragraphs.
• Remove numbering from indented and numbered paragraphs.

After you apply the bullet or numbering format, you must insert the indents into the paragraph.

If you've struggled with Word's bullets and didn't see the answer to your question here, this query will show you all the Office Online Assistance for Word bullets.

Excel: Getting a bullet into a worksheet

Unlike Word, Excel does not provide a button to create a bulleted list in text. To add bullets to worksheet text, you need to insert a symbol.

1. Complete one of the following depending on the content in the Excel cell where you want to add a bullet:
   • To add a bullet to an empty cell on the worksheet, click the cell. You may want to do this if your bullets will be in a separate column from the list items
   • To add a bullet to a cell that contains text, double-click the cell, and then place the insertion point where you want the bullet to appear. Do this when you want the bullet and list item to appear in the same cell.
2. On the Insert menu, click Symbol.
3. On the Symbols tab, in the Font box, click the font that you want to use.
4. Use the scroll bar on the right side to find the symbol that you want to insert.

Tip Different fonts provide different symbols. If your font does not provide the bullet or other symbol that you want, try selecting a font like Wingdings.

• Click the bullet or symbol that you want, click Insert, and then click Close.
• To add more bullets, you can copy and paste the first one that you inserted.

Or, if the bullet is in its own cell, you can drag the fill handle to repeat the symbol in adjacent cells.

PowerPoint: Straightening out the left margin

PowerPoint is so bullet-oriented that I find it really frustrating to try to format non-bulleted text nicely. Everything's fine if I want to enter a single-line paragraph, but if the text wraps to a second line, the first line's left margin is out-dented, like this:

Here's how to fix the problem:

1. If the ruler is not displayed, on the View menu, click Ruler.
2. On the slide, click the bulleted or numbered text you want to change.

If the text contains more than one level of bulleted or numbered items, the ruler displays indent markers for each level.

¹First-line indent, showing the indent position of the bullet or number.
²Left indent marker, showing the indent position of text in the list.

To change the position of the bullets, text, or indents, do any of the following:

• To change the position of the bullets or numbers, drag the first-line indent marker.
• To change the position of the text, drag the left indent marker. Drag just the pointed top part of the marker (if you drag the bottom rectangle, both indents move together).
• To move the indents as a whole and keep the relationship between the bullet or number and the left text indent as it is, drag the rectangular part on the bottom of the left indent marker.

Note To change these settings for all the slides in a presentation, make the changes to the slide master. To display the slide master, on the View menu, point to Master, and then click Slide Master.

By the way, every time I write one of these TipTalk articles, I learn something new. Today, it was how to fix the left margin on my PowerPoint slides. I hate to think how long I've struggled with that without thinking of just looking on the Web for help. I guess it just proves again that there's always something new to learn! If you'd like more tips and ideas, check out these articles:

4 quick tips for using Excel

12 Tips for Creating Better Documents

12 Tips for Creating Better Presentations

—Robbin Young