If you wonder why Microsoft Word 365 creates a new bullet every time you press the Enter key, you aren’t alone! This is common and frustrating issue many Word 365 users face when trying to format documents using bullets or numbered lists.
In this short post I want to share all you need to know about working with bullets, which can also be applied to numbers in Microsoft Word 365 along with some keyboard shortcuts for making working with bullet points in Word easier.
Why should you use bullets in Word 365?
Bullets are icons that are placed at the start of content that is then indented in a Word document. In Microsoft Word 365, bullets can be symbols, or they could be numbers or roman numerals. Numbered bullets are referred to as a numbered list.
Using bullets makes information in a Word 365 document easier to visually read and it helps simplify key points.
Once you understand how to add bullets to your Word 365 documents, you will be able to trouble shoot bullet point issues in Microsoft Word 365 making working with them less frustrating.
How to Add Bullets to your document?
To activate a bullet:
- Click where you want to start the bullet list
- From the Home tab, in the Paragraph grouping, click the bullet icon (it has 3 dots and 3 lines)
- Type in your text
- Each time you press the Enter key on the keyboard Word will create a new bulleted point
- To switch the bulleting off when you are finished you can either press the Enter key twice or press it once and click the bullet icon on the Home tab in the Paragraph grouping to switch the bullets off.
The same process can be followed for numbers, except instead of clicking the bullet icon, click the number icon on the Home tab in the Paragraph grouping (it has the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and 3 lines).
That’s how to create a simple bulleted list.
To change the bullet icon
There may be times where instead of the default icon, you would like to have a different icon, here’s how to troubleshoot changing the icons.
- To change the bullet icon to another icon, highlight the bulletted text
- From the Home tab, in the Paragraph grouping, click the drop arrow beside the bullet icon and a range of options will display
- Choose the desired option and the bullets will be altered to the new icon.
The same process can be followed to change or troubleshoot the style of numbers, however instead of clicking the bullet icon drop arrow, click the number icon drop arrow on the Home tab in the Paragraph grouping (it has the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and 3 lines).
How to add bullets to existing text
Let’s say you’ve typed your text, now you want to turn that text into a bulleted list. Here’s how to do it
- Highlight the text the bullets will be applied to
- From the Home tab, in the Paragraph grouping, click the bullet icon (it has 3 dots and 3 lines)
- The bullets will now be applied to the selected text.
The same process can be followed to add numbers to text, except instead of clicking the bullet icon, click the number icon on the Home tab in the Paragraph grouping (it has the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and 3 lines).
How to force text to start on a new line but not activate a new bullet
Troubleshooting Microsoft Word 365 document bullets can be frustrating. Sometimes you want text to start on a new line, but it relates to the current bulleted point so you don’t want to create a new bullet. The trick to getting Microsoft Word 365 to do this is we need to:
- Click where the new line is to start, for example at the end of the sentence
- Press the Shift key + Enter – this is the keyboard shortcut to tell Excel to start a new line but not a new paragraph, which is what happens if you press the Enter key
- Press Enter to start the next bulleted point.
The same process can be followed to force text to start on a new line when using numbers.
Hopefully this short post helps understand and troubleshoot bullet point issues in Microsoft Word 365.
If you’d like to see bullets in action, take a look at the video below.
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