Replacing First-Line Indents with Tabs

Howard has a document where some paragraphs have an indented first line. He would like to find all of the indents and replace the indents with tabs.

There are several ways that this can be done, though it is unclear why it should be done. Tab characters, as the first character of a paragraph, aren't necessary to achieve an indent for a paragraph. It is much more common (and much more flexible) to use paragraph styles to control the indents necessary, first line or not, for the paragraphs in your document.

Even so, if you want to make the replacements, one way you can do so is to use Find and Replace. With the document open, follow these steps:

1. Press Ctrl+H. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. If it is available, click on the More button. Word expands the options available in the dialog box.
3. Make sure the insertion point is in the Find What box.
4. Click the Format button at the bottom-left corner of the dialog box and the choose Paragraph. Word displays the Find Paragraph dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Find Paragraph dialog box.

5. Using the Special drop-down list, choose First Line. (Don't make any other changes in the dialog box.)
6. Click on OK to close the Find Paragraph dialog box.
7. Place the insertion point in the Replace With box.
8. Type ^t^&. (This indicates you want to replace what is found with a tab character, followed by what was found.)
9. Click the Format button at the bottom-left corner of the dialog box and the choose Paragraph. Word displays the Replace Paragraph dialog box. (This looks identical to the Find Paragraph dialog box, except for the name.)
10. Make sure the Special drop-down list is set to (none).
11. Click on OK to close the Find Paragraph dialog box.
12. Click on Replace All. Word informs you how many changes were made.
13. Close the Find and Replace dialog box.

This process will change only those paragraphs that had their first lines indented. If you want to change all paragraphs to have a tab at the beginning, then you can do so in this manner:

1. Press Ctrl+A. Word selects the entire document.
2. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
3. Click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Paragraph group. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box.
4. Using the Special drop-down list, choose (none).
5. Click OK to close the dialog box. Now none of the paragraphs have a first-line indent.
6. Press Ctrl+H. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
7. If it is available, click on the More button. Word expands the options available in the dialog box.
8. In the Find What box, enter ^p. (This indicates you want to search for hard returns.)
9. Click the No Formatting button, if it is available.
10. In the Replace With box, enter ^p^t. (This indicates you want to replace with a hard return followed by a tab character.)
11. Click the No Formatting button, if it is available.
12. Click Replace All. Word lets you know how many replacements were made.
13. Close the Find and Replace dialog box.

This process adds a tab character in front of every paragraph with a few exceptions. First, it won't add one to the first paragraph in the document. Second, it doesn't affect any "fake paragraphs" created with line breaks. Third, it won't affect most text in tables or text boxes. Finally, it may not give exactly the result you want on paragraphs formatted as numbered or bulleted lists.

If you want to routinely make these types of changes, then a macro can be very helpful. Here's an example of one you could use:

Sub ChangeFLIndents()
    Dim p As Paragraph

    For Each p In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
        If p.FirstLineIndent > 0 Then
            p.FirstLineIndent = 0
            p.Range.InsertBefore vbTab
        End If
    Next p
End Sub

The macro looks at every paragraph and affects only those that have a first-line indent. In other words, it doesn't affect all paragraphs. In this regard it is very similar to the first Find and Replace technique described in tis tip.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10534) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365.