How to Indent Paragraphs on Google Docs: A step-by-step guide
If you’ve been trying to indent paragraphs on Google Docs with no idea of how to go about it, you’d be relieved to know that the option for this feature is not available on Google Docs mobile app, be it on iOS or Android. The complete web-based version of Docs is where you need to inquire to use the paragraph indenting option.
An indentation is a blank space between a margin and a line of text. It Indicates a new paragraph and helps stylize your text, depending on the type of write-up you’re working on.
We might never know Google‘s reasons for omitting this crucial feature on its mobile apps, but, in the meantime, you can use the web version after you enable ruler visibility. Read on below to find out how to go about it:
Indenting Paragraphs on Google Docs
To begin with, ensure you have Google Docs downloaded as a plug-in on your browser. You can do this more intuitively with Microsoft’s Edge browser. Either way, open a text-filled document once you launch Google Docs. Then, follow the steps below:
Step 1
Highlight the paragraph or paragraphs on which you want to apply indents. You can also highlight all the text in the document by pressing CTRL + A.
Step 2
Check Docs top menu to see if you can find any ruler. Navigate to and select View. If there’s none, then Show ruler. You should spot two light-blue markers paired together on the left side of the ruler. The one on top is a horizontal bar, while the bottom one is a triangle facing downwards.
Step 3
If you intend to create a first-line indent, the horizontal bar marker, highlight one or more paragraphs and drag the marker to the right. Given that the marker is small and, thus, requires mouse cursor precision to drag correctly, you might want to use the zoom function on your browser to see things more clearly.
While dragging the first-line indent marker to the right, you’ll notice a vertical line hovering over your texts with a black box. These indicate how many inches you’re indexing the highlighted paragraphs. Release the marker once you’ve indexed the paragraph to a good point.
Step 4
Conversely, you can use the left indent marker, the downward-facing triangle, if you want to index all lines under a paragraph instead of just the first. Highlight the paragraph you intend indexing and then drag the downward-facing triangle to the right to make this effect.
Step 5
You can also use the two markers if you’re working on a reference page, bibliography, or other types of texts that require a hanging indent. You can do this by highlighting only the first line in a paragraph and dragging it to the right with the first-line indent marker.
Subsequently, you’ll highlight other lines in the paragraph while leaving out the first and then use the downward-facing triangle to drag them to the right.
Final Notes
There you have it — the relatively easy methods to index paragraphs on Google Docs. Alternatively, you can use the index buttons on the far-right of Docs toolbar to increase or decrease the index of highlighted texts. However, this method doesn’t give you as much flexibility as the ones highlighted in this article.
If you found this handy, you may want to check my article on how to make a graph on Google Sheets. Enjoy it!
