Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Borders on Multiple Paragraphs with Differing Indents.
Dirk knows how to add borders around paragraphs, but when paragraphs contain indents (such as with a bulleted list), then the border is also indented which is not good looking at all. Dirk wonders how he can avoid this border indenting and keep his bulleted lists indented.
There are a few ways you can go about solving this problem. Unfortunately, none of those methods include adjusting paragraph or border formatting. (That would be too simple.) If you adjust the paragraph indent of the problem paragraphs—which does cause the border to be correct—it ends up moving your bullets all the way to the left margin. If you adjust the border formatting so that the left-border distance from the text is set to a larger or smaller value, it adjusts for all the paragraphs that are bordered, not just the paragraphs with the bulleted lists.
The only satisfactory method we've been able to come up with involves placing the paragraphs that you wanted bordered within a table cell, a text box, or a frame. Of the three, the frame approach is perhaps the best because the borders on the four sides of the frame can be independently formatted and (more importantly) the frame is treated as part of the actual text, not placed on separate layers as is a table and a text box. One drawback to using a frame is that it can't break across pages, but this may not be that big of a deal for short selections of text.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12035) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Borders on Multiple Paragraphs with Differing Indents.
The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!
Word allows you to quickly add borders to cells in a table, but you may not know that you can also add borders to the ...
Discover MoreAdd a border around a piece of text (such as a paragraph), and Word makes some assumptions about the placement of that ...
Discover MoreWhen you use fields in your document, you may want them to not change from a particular displayed result. You can lock ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2018 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: 
Comments