When you are writing a document, you need to make it easy to read.  Professional writers sometimes talk about things called “Entry Points”…  points where a reader can quickly and easily start reading your document and pick up what you are trying to say.

Bullet points do exactly that!

Bullet points allow you to quickly structure information so your audience can easily interpret exactly what you are going on about!

So how do you use bullets in Word 2007?

1. Select the text you want to apply bullets to (you can do this by clicking and dragging across the text you want)
2. On the “Home” tab of the ribbon, look for the “Paragraph” group
3. In the top left hand corner of the paragraph group, you will find a button that looks like three lines with bullets.  Click on it

   

That’s the easy way to use bullets in your document.  But what if you don’t want to use the standard black dot bullet?  Maybe you want to use something with a little more flair?

How to use custom bullets in Word 2007…

1. Again, select the test you want to apply bullets to, then find the bullets button in the “Paragraph” group on the “Home” tab of the ribbon
2. Instead of clicking on the bullets button, click on the little down arrow beside it.  This will display a library of different bullets you can use.  Feel free to use any of those, or….
3. Click on “Define New Bullet…”.  This will allow you to create any bullet you like, whether it be based on a letter, a number,any character out of any font you have installed on your computer, or even any picture that you have on your computer!!!
4. Select the style of bullet that you want… then click ok.

There you have it… the quick and easy way to include bullets in your Word 2007 document!

’till next time,
TNP