How to Use Rulers in Microsoft Word

1. Display your ruler by selecting 'Ruler' in the View menu.
2. Look over the main parts of the ruler. The dark areas are parts of the page where you aren't writing, while the light parts are the active area of the document. There are also two triangular stops and a rectangular stop at the beginning of the white section and one triangular stop at the end.
3. Block, or highlight, the text you want to change before using the ruler guides. While this isn't always necessary, blocking allows you to confirm what you are and aren't changing.
4. Use the left rectangular and right triangular stops to change the margins for the selected area. This sort of change is particularly useful for making block quotes and sidebars in a document.
5. Move the upper left stop to change the first line indent of the selected area.
6. Slide the bottom left triangle to create a hanging indent, all parts of the paragraph indented but the first line.
7. Click once on the ruler to make a tab stop or double-click to bring up the tab box. These stops are special points where the cursor will stop when you press the 'Tab' key. If you have a section blocked, the new stop will only work in that area if there is not a blocked section then the tab will be in the entire document.