MS Word 2007 tab indent not working
63MS Word 2007 has a ton of options and is pretty cool, but sometimes it’s just a pain in the ass because it has so many options. I make a lot of bulleted lists to organize data. For the past week or so MS Word 2007 hasn’t been indenting the next bullet line below the previous bullet when I hit the tab key. I don’t know why… I probably clicked too fast one day and “POOF” it didn’t work anymore! I’ve done this a few times before, like with the paragraph settings. Anyway, here’s how to fix this issue.
1. Click the circularly looking office icon in the upper left corner of MS Word 2007 and then select “Word Options”.

2. Select “Proofing” on the left menu and then select “AutoCorrect Options” on the right.

3. Select the “AutoFormat As You Type” tab and check the “Set left and first indent with tabs and backspaces” checkbox. 
Hi I'm Nick Bartlett and thanks for visiting my blog. I'm not much of a writer; many of my posts are short and to the point while others are meant to be a reference for myself and other web developers.
Nick Bartlett. I don’t know who you are, but i love you! THANKS!!! this has been an issue for me for WEEKS!
thank you SO MUCH
Like the others… THANK YOU!!! ^___^ Seriously… I was on the verge of eating my computer piece by piece I was so damn frustrated that I “lost” this functionality… ;o)
Okay – I’m on the other side of this. I need (actually, my boss wants) the bullets to align with the left margin. I showed her how to do it manually (using the “decrease indent” button and also by clicking on the bullet dropdown and choosing “define new bullet” before you start your list.)
Well, she doesn’t want to do it that way. She wants to default the bullet to “not indent” each time she hits the bullet button. Please, Please, Please tell me there is a way to do this…
THANK YOU! This helped me sooooo much during final exams!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You also helped me during finals week too
God bless you, this has been driving me nuts.
best website ever….helped me during finals to
thanks a lot for this, anyone know how to prevent the new office from reformatting your entire document when you change something.
when I bold something, it bolds everything in the document and I have to revert it…it’s very annoying
Thanks so much! This is exactly what I weas looking for that no other site had as a fix.
Thanks man, I had apparently stripped those options out of frustration doing something else, then had no idea how to get them back on. (Other than doing a google search, of course)
Thank you so much! This started happening to me yesterday – don’t know how I managed to gank it up but I couldn’t find the right menu to undo it! You have saved my sanity. Thanks!
Great tip… Thank you for posting.
Nick, you da man!! This problem had been bugging me for weeks. Found your site and it was a quick and easy fix.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the helpful article, it saved me a lot of frustration.
Best Regards,
Chris
I never take the time to comment, but you’re a genius. Just started happening to me, had no idea why. THANK YOU
Seriously…THANK YOU. This was driving me nuts.
Thank you very much!!! That was driving me mental
DUDE! u ROCK. i was going insane
You are my hero! This thing was bugging me for weeks!!!
Thanks so much!
Phl
Nick. Thanks a ton. This was the problem and i can finally leave the office!
Thanks!!!
Thanks a lot Nick! I was sitting in class, trying to take notes in a bullet format when this problem occurred. Major pain in the ass.
Man! That was uber-helpful, that was pissing me off big time.
thanks SO MUCH!!!!!! youre my hero
Nick:
Thank you! I use Vi and Eclipse most of the time. But though I have to use Word, I don’t think I need to know every nook and cranny of Word. You’d think the built in help would contain a cross reference to anything related in the options settings. How hard could that be? Better yet, have its defaults to match prior Word versions.
– Josef
Thank you thank was looking for that forever. Big help.
Thank you so much!!!
Thanks buddy! Pictures and ALL
Thanks so much!!
One of the things I hate about Word 2007 is that it take out so many useful things that used to work in Word 2003. I don’t know why they turn it off by default. But good that you found out how to enable it again!
Thanks! This is still helpful.
Nick, why is it that the littlest things are so annying?! Thanx very much for this fix – I didn’t know how to get it working correctly and would never have figured it out without your site. Thanks x 2.
Seriously, you are a lifesaver.
This is the same process for Word 2010. Thanks!
Thanks Mate !
That was time saving …
Thanks a million.
I know this is repetitive, but I had to do it.
Thank you! This has been driving me crazy for months.
I dont usually comment, but this started happening today to me and I had to type up 100 items in a numbered list and each one had a sub list. I would have probably gone crazy if I had to click that stupid indent button every time. I dont know why MS broke this feature, but thanks for having the solution.
Hey! Thank you very much! I know you’re probably heard it a quadrillion times, but your site is the only one to give me the straight answer without sending me off somewhere only to get lost.
Thank you so much. This was driving me crazy.
Excellent work – the Internet is a wonderful thing…Thanks Nick!
Thank you! I was going crazy trying to take notes for class. I appreciate you taking the time to post step by step instructions and pictures! I have no clue why this functionality is automatically off… it is so helpful to not have to move my hand and use the mouse in the middle of trying to take notes quickly (or anytime I am using lists!)
yes….thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are a lifesaver, I’ve been trying every possible option to fix the tab indent not working, and now it’s FINALLY restored!
Thank you so so so sosososososossososo MUCH!
I could not figure out what I did to Word, and this was so stupid and easy a fix! I would never have figured it out without your help! Sometimes I really, really hate Word.
OMG!!!! you are AMAZING!!! I was having the same problem with MS Word 2011 for MAC and these steps WORKED!!! Thank you .
I love you so much! Thank you for being you!
Thanks a lot man. I was wigging out the other day having to manually tab over my work but not anymore
I wasn’t going to eat my computer, rather I wanted to smash it in a park with a baseball bat with GhettoBoyz playing in the background à la Office Space!
Thank you so much for taking the time to post these solutions.