In most cases, formatting all the bullets in your document is easy to do. When bullets are not formatted properly, they can be distracting and give your document a haphazard appearance. Fortunately, it’s easy to get them looking neat and tidy with just a few keystrokes.
To start, make sure that you haven’t added many more bullet points than are necessary or included other formatting styles besides standard text. If these items are adjusted accordingly before beginning the following steps, much of the work will already be done for you.
How To Format All Bullets In Word?
- Open your document and click on the Bullets icon (the one with two circles and an arrow) in the Paragraph group. This icon, called a bullet point marker, will appear in the center of your paragraph.
- Select a Bullet Point marker. This will change the text within that marker to Bullets. The words “Bullets” will appear underlined in bold italics in the margins.
- Click on the words “Bullets” to select an entire text block. This will change the bullet to a small letter ” b” in the margins.
- Double-click on any standard text within your document and this will fill the selected block of text with that type of formatting. For example, if you double-click on normal paragraph text, you will fill it with normal paragraph formatting.
If you double-click on a heading, you will have that type of heading added to your document.
To format the text for an entire block of text, click on the Bullets icon once again. The Bullets icon will turn into a small movement arrow and the words “Bullets” in the margin will turn into a large movement arrow. The large arrow pointing down does not dictate what will happen. It simply indicates that some action will be taken when you click there.
Double-click on the large dot to the right of the word “Bullets.” This will change all bullets within your paragraph to bold text. The formatting of this bolded text can be changed by selecting “Normal” in the Font group and picking a new font, size, and color. You can also select other formatting types from the Bullets drop-down menu.
Go back to the Bullets icon in the Paragraph group. Click on it once again and this will turn off bullets. The words “Bullets” will no longer appear in the margins of your text.
Right-click anywhere on your screen. A shortcut menu will appear, including “Bullets” under Formatting options.
Click on “Bullets” in this menu and a submenu will appear with many different bullet options. As mentioned previously, you may want to review these options so that you are familiar with them.
Continue working within Word until you have finished your project. When finished, close Word without saving any changes. This will avoid problems in the future due to unsaved changes. You can check our latest post Add Square Bullets in Word.
Tip: It is also possible to format all bullets within your document by simply clicking on them.
Why Are My Bullet Points Different Sizes Word?
If you have ever formatted a bulleted list in Word, then you know that your bullet points all do not look exactly the same size. When bullets are added to the text, they increase in size as the text increases in size automatically. Sometimes it can be difficult to balance your text and bullets so that they both look just right. This is where the “Bullets & Numbering” section in the Styles menu comes in handy.
- Click on the “Bullets & Numbering” tab. This will show you a list of styles that you can select for your bullet points, including the normal and bold ones.
- The only thing you have to do is click on whichever style you want to apply to your bullets and click “Apply Styles” at the bottom of the list. Your bullets will instantly become different sizes.
How To Decrease Space Between Bullet and Text In Word
If your bullets are not touching the text next to them, they need to be indented more.
- In the “Bullets & Numbering“ menu, select one of the Bullet styles and click “Apply Styles”.
- To change the amount of space between your text and bullets, you need to click on whatever specific style you’re using for your text (such as “Heading 1”) and then click “Modify”.
- A new window will pop up. Type in the amount of spacing that you want the bullets to be away from your text.
- You can also apply a custom margin to your document by clicking on “Margins” at the bottom of this screen and entering a custom number.
Multiple Bullet Points On One Line in Microsoft Word | How to Make Horizontal Bullet Points
Conclusion
Formatting all bullets in Word is not as hard as you think. All you have to do is click the “Alt” key on your keyboard and press either “1” or “2” on your numeric keypad (or left shift and any one number on your letter keyboard). This will automatically apply the proper formatting to all bullets in Word. The “Bullets & Numbering” section in the Styles menu will also help you format your bullets so that they are all balanced and of equal size.
Hope you enjoyed learning how to format all bullets in Word!