One of the most irritating things with Microsoft Word is paragraph numbering or bullets.

You start off the numbering or bullets; press Enter at the end of the paragraph and then press Enter again to give a gap between the paragraphs… to make it easier to read. And what does Word do? Cancels your numbers or bullets!

Here’s 4 tips on how you can get nicely spaced paragraphs and keep your numbering or bullets working perfectly…

1) Set your numbered paragraph format to have a spacing of 12 pt (i.e. 1 line) before it. When typing numbered paragraphs you will find it easier to keep the spacing and the numbering sequence that you want.

Increase the spacing before starting your numbered paragraphs with Ctrl + 0 (zero). The same keys can be used to remove the extra spacing when the numbered paragraphs are finished.

2) Suppress numbering for the next paragraph, use Shift & Enter instead of Enter. (This is not suitable for justified paragraphs).

3) For justified paragraphs: right (alternate) click the paragraph you want to stop numbering on and choose Skip Numbering from the quick menu.*

4) Restart paragraph numbering. If the numbering continues from a previous numbered section, alternate (right) click to display the quick menu and choose Restart Numbering

* If you do not have Skip Numbering on your quick menu you need to customise your menu and add the option:

From the menu: View, Toolbars, Customize, on the Toolbars tab, select Shortcut Menus

On the new toolbar that appears, Click on Text then Lists

In the Customize dialogue box Click the Commands tab, select All Commands

Click & Drag the SkipNumbering option from the right hand box to the Lists menu

In the other articles in this mini-series I share another 21 tips:

* Preparing Word - How to Stop Word being ‘bossy’ and taking over your document.

* Keyboard shortcuts (some well known, others not so well known) to save you time.

* 8 tips on how to get your page looking exactly as you want it to

* Creating Contents lists, quick tips for spell checking and hyphenation.

©2005 Original Work by Carol Bentley

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Carol is the author of ‘I Want to Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me a Letter Yet? (How to create powerful sales letters, advertisements, flyers, brochures, web pages and newsletters that persuade hundreds, or even thousands, of additional customers and clients to buy from you!) by Carol A E Bentley (Rated 5-star on Amazon.co.uk) This book is available at a special offer at http://www.CarolBentley.com/offer.

Carol is one of the highest paid direct response copywriters available. If you would like to talk to Carol’s office about having her work on your current or next sales project you can use the contact form on her website http://www.CarolBentley.com/contact.asp.