How to Do a Hanging Indent in Word

Your reference list looks wrong: each source wraps its second line back under the author’s name, and the assignment wants that line pushed in. The fix in Word is a hanging indent. Select the entries, go to Home, open the Paragraph settings launcher, set Special to Hanging and By to 0.5″, then select OK. For speed on Windows, select the entries and press Ctrl + T.

Pick the fastest route for your situation

A hanging indent keeps the first line of a paragraph at the margin and indents every line after it. Microsoft also calls it a second-line indent. Which route is best depends on how much text you are formatting and whether you will keep adding to it.

Your situation	Best route	Why
One entry, or a quick fix on Windows	Select it and press Ctrl + T	One keystroke; Ctrl + Shift + T takes it back off
A full reference list that must match a style guide	Paragraph settings with an exact By value	You see and control the exact depth
A list you will keep adding sources to	Save the indent in a paragraph style	New entries pick it up automatically
A bulleted or numbered list	Adjust the list indents instead	Lists already hang their wrapped lines
Fine visual tweaking	Drag the ruler markers	Fast, but less precise

Set the exact depth in the Paragraph box

This is the route to use when a teacher, journal or style guide gives you a measurement.

1. Select every entry you want to change. If the whole document is a reference list, press Ctrl + A.
2. On the Home tab, select the small launcher arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Paragraph group. The Paragraph box opens on Indents and Spacing.
3. Under Indentation, open the Special list and choose Hanging.
4. Type the depth in By. Word usually fills in 0.5″, which is what most citation styles want.
5. Check the preview, then select OK.

If the By box shows centimeters, your copy of Word is set to metric units. Half an inch is 1.27 cm, so type that, or type 0.5″ with the inch mark and Word converts it for you.

Keep the Left setting at 0. If Left is also 0.5″, the whole entry shifts right and the first line no longer sits on the margin. For a wider look at the other boxes in this window, see changing left, right, first line and hanging indents in Word.

Read the ruler: two triangles and a square

If the ruler isn’t showing, turn it on from the View tab by checking Ruler. At the left end you will see three markers stacked on each other:

• Top triangle (pointing down): the First Line Indent. It sets where line one starts.
• Bottom triangle (pointing up): the Hanging Indent. It sets where lines two onward start.
• Square under them: the Left Indent. Dragging it moves both triangles together, so the whole paragraph shifts.

To make a hanging indent by hand, select the entries and drag only the bottom triangle to the 0.5″ mark, leaving the top triangle at 0. Reading the markers is also the fastest way to diagnose a problem: if both triangles sit at 0.5″, you have a left indent, not a hanging one. Body paragraphs usually need the opposite, where only the first line moves; see setting a 0.5-inch first-line indent.

Match your citation style

APA 7 asks for a 0.5-inch hanging indent on the whole reference list, with the list double-spaced and no extra blank lines between entries. MLA works-cited entries also use a half-inch hanging indent. For Chicago, Harvard or a house style, check the guide your instructor or publisher uses rather than assuming the same number.

Spacing matters as much as the indent. Double spacing is set in the same Paragraph box under Line spacing, and the line spacing walkthrough for Word explains how to remove the extra space Word adds after paragraphs. For the rest of an MLA paper, follow MLA format in Word.

If Word built your list with References > Bibliography, look at the result before formatting by hand, then see updating a bibliography in Word so later citations land in the list. A list typed by hand can be sorted with putting a bibliography in alphabetical order; sort first, then indent.

Format the reference list once with a style

Pressing Ctrl + T on every new source works, but a paragraph style keeps the list consistent and survives later edits.

1. Format one entry exactly as you want it: hanging indent, spacing and font.
2. Right-click the entry, select Styles on the mini toolbar, and choose Create a Style.
3. Name it something clear, such as References, and select OK.
4. Click in each other entry, or select them all, and choose the References style from the Styles gallery on the Home tab.

If you later change the depth, adjust one entry, then right-click the style in the gallery and choose Update References to Match Selection. Every entry using the style changes at once.

Word on a Mac and in a browser

In Word for Mac, select the entries and choose Format > Paragraph (or right-click and choose Paragraph). The same Special and By boxes appear. Command + Option + M also opens the Paragraph box on a Mac. The ruler markers work the same way as on Windows.

If the browser version of Word doesn’t show the indent setting you need, open the file in the Word desktop app, apply the indent there and save; the indent stays when you reopen the file online.

When the indent goes wrong

Most failures come from how the entries were typed, not from the indent setting. Turn on formatting marks with the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Home tab (Ctrl + Shift + 8 on Windows) to see what is really there.

• Each line of an entry is treated separately: someone pressed Enter at the end of each line. An indent applies to a whole paragraph, which ends where you press Enter. Delete the extra ¶ marks inside each entry so every source is one paragraph.
• A bent arrow appears mid-entry: that is a manual line break (Shift + Enter). It keeps the same paragraph, so the line after it is treated as a wrapped line. Delete it unless you want a break there.
• The indent keeps growing: Ctrl + T was pressed more than once, and each press moves it further. Press Ctrl + Shift + T to step back, or type the exact value in By.
• A pasted list ignores the indent: copied text often brings its own formatting, tabs or spaces. Paste with the text-only paste option, remove any leading tabs or spaces, then apply the indent or the References style.
• Only the first line moved: Special is set to First line. Switch it to Hanging.

If your document is in Google Docs

Google Docs has its own Indentation options with a Hanging special indent. The details are in indenting in Google Docs, with separate steps for a hanging indent in Google Docs on iPad and a full MLA setup in Google Docs.

Hanging indent questions

Does the indent carry over when I press Enter for the next source?

Usually yes. A new paragraph takes the formatting of the one you pressed Enter in, so you can type the next entry and it will hang the same way. Text pasted in from elsewhere may not follow, which is why a style helps.

How do I indent the wrapped lines of a numbered or bulleted list?

Lists set their own text position, so Ctrl + T can fight with them. Right-click the list and use Adjust List Indents; adjusting list indents in Word shows each box.

Once the list looks right, print or export one page and check that every second line lines up at the same point before you submit.

Microsoft’s own steps are on its create a hanging indent page, and the Ctrl + T and Ctrl + Shift + T shortcuts are listed in Word’s keyboard shortcuts.