I run Microsoft word 2003 as a word processor. How do I keep the margins from changing while typing a document

Question

When I come to the end of a line and want to start another paragraph and tab the margins change. How can I stop this?

Answer 1

When you get to the end of a line, Word will automatically wrap the words that don't fit onto the next line, so that you don't have to hit Enter after each line. To start a new paragraph, hit Enter - your insertion point should go to the next line and be in line with the little down arrow on your ruler (if you look closely at your ruler, you have a down arrow, an up arrow, and a box - the arrows are really pentagons, but they look like arrows or triangles).

The margins shouldn't change when you hit Tab - only the indent should change. I have seen cases where hitting Tab more than once moves the three shapes on your ruler. In that case, you can drag those things back to where you need them to be. But those don't control the margins. Again, on your ruler, you should see a gray area and a white area. That divide is your margin, controlled by File-Page Setup. Hitting Tab may control where your indents are, but it shouldn't have any effect on your margins.

Here's a neat trick - if you're typing a document and have to indent the first line of every paragraph the same amount, then before you start typing, move that down arrow to where your indent should be. When you type normally and hit Enter to start a new paragraph, your new paragraph will automatically be indented the same amount. This may help you so that you're not using Tab so much.

Now if none of this helped, let me know and we can try to figure out what exactly is changing when you hit Tab on your keyboard.