Workiva Support Center

You can edit line spacing, column options, and indentations for paragraphs from the Paragraph Properties panel. You can also use this panel to control how paragraphs interact with page breaks.

Format paragraphs

To format paragraphs, you can use different settings in the Paragraph Properties panel.

To open the Paragraph Properties panel:

1.  From the File toolbar, click Properties.
2. Select Paragraph from the dropdown menu. This will open the Paragraph Properties panel to the right. 

You can also access this panel by right-clicking in your document and choosing Paragraph Properties.

From here, you can modify columns, indentation, spacing, and pagination.

Columns: Add columns to your file and add a gutter in between multiple columns.

Indentation: Indent the first line of your paragraph or add spacing on the left or right of your paragraph.

Spacing: Choose a type of line spacing. We have single, 1.5, double, percent, and points available. You can also apply and add spacing before or after your paragraph. 

Note: You must select your paragraph in order to apply formatting changes.

Format page breaks

You can also use the Paragraph Properties panel to format page breaks. 

To control how content flows between page breaks, you can use the Pagination options.

• Keep with next ensures that the selected paragraph and the paragraph immediately after will not be separated by a page break.

• Keep lines together ensures that the selected paragraph will only be split by a hard page break.

• Widow orphan control prevents a single line at the beginning (a widow) or the end (an orphan) of your paragraph from being placed on a separate page.

Use tab stops

Tab stops allow you to create custom indentation for your paragraphs as well as custom alignment for your text. You may want to use tab stops to create a more organized or more formal document format. 

Each document automatically has two types of tab stops: a First Line Indent tab stop and a Hanging Indent tab stop.

Click and drag the triangle to move the first line indent. To move the First Line Indent in half-inch increments, press Tab on your keyboard. 

Custom tab stops let you further adjust the paragraph indents.

To add a custom tab stop:

1. Place your cursor next to the text that you want to align.
2. Right-click the ruler bar and choose a tab stop.
   
3. Use Tab on your keyboard to move the text to that location.
4. Click and drag to reposition the tab stop if needed.

As you move the triangle to the left or right, you'll see a blue line indicating where the text will begin in the document, along with a tooltip of the exact placement on the ruler.

Note: Tab stops are set at the paragraph level. If you move your cursor to the next paragraph, the tab stop indicator on the ruler disappears.

To remove a tab stop, click and drag the triangle down until the tab stop disappears. If you'd like to clear all of your tab stops, right-click the ruler and choose Clear all tab stops.