Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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: Inserting a Bullet.

Inserting a Bullet

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 4, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

It is not unusual to create bulleted lists within a document. What if you want to place a bullet within the middle of a sentence, however? There are two ways you can do this in Word. First, you can follow these steps:

Position the insertion point where you want the bullet to appear.
Choose Symbol from the Insert menu. Word displays the Symbol dialog box. (To display the dialog box, display the Insert tab of the ribbon, click Symbol (in the Symbols group), and then click More Symbols.) (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Symbol dialog box.

Use the Font drop-down list to select the font you want to use for the bullet.
Double-click on the bullet character you want inserted.
Click on Close.

Another option for inserting a bullet is to hold down the Alt key as you type 0183 on the numeric keypad. This inserts a small round bullet at the insertion point. If you are a laptop user, you may not have the numeric keypad available. There are key combinations to press to create the equivalent of a PC numeric keypad. The following web page is a good place to start on researching some of these key combinations:

https://fsymbols.com/keyboard/windows/alt-codes/laptop/

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12492) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Inserting a Bullet.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is nine minus 5?

2019-02-09 13:00:20

Allan

Alt+7 will also apply a bullet. You might like it better than Alt+0183.

2019-02-09 10:26:06

Lou B

My preferred keyboard bullet is ALT+0149. It's bigger than the ALT+0183.

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