Right Tab Stop to the right of the Right Indent - Not Working

Anonymous
2013-11-20T18:08:50+00:00

You used to be able to place a right tab stop outside of the right indent, so that the tab actually appeared on the ruler to the right of the right indent. This was how a table of contents would be formatted so that if the heading title was longer than one line, the text would only go as far right as the right indent as it wrapped onto multiple lines, and then the page number would align farther right of the heading text at the tab stop. It now appears that Word 2013 (when it is not in Compatibility Mode) cannot recognize a tab stop if it is to the right of the right indent, so I cannot figure out how to get this alignment if the heading title is longer than one line.

The only way I can find that you can is to use manual returns at the end of each line of text with a dot leader tab on the last line, like this example:

   Really long heading title that is tremendously long so it goes longer than one line of text (RETURN)

   and in fact just keeps going on and on so that it spans multiple lines in the document (RETURN)

   instead of all fitting on one line of the document……………………………………………………………..............……….…3

How do I create an alignment like this within the paragraph settings without manually adding returns?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Stefan Blom 353K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2017-06-22T11:17:31+00:00

Well, I have the same problem with WORD2016 now and even though I am glad I found your posts about the problems with the 2013 version, I am still frustrated that this problem is not addressed and solved in the new version.

I now followed an old reply found here and saved my document in the .doc format - and voila... it now does what I want. But can this be the solution?? To go back to save it in an ancient format???

If you are running Word for Mac, you should start a new thread.

In Word 2016 (or in Word 2013 with the most recent updates) for Windows, you can set a tab stop to the right of a right indent, but NOT to the right of the right margin. This is by design. See screen shot below.

Also, you must use the Tab dialog box; you can't add such a tab stop by double-clicking the horizontal ruler.

Older file formats still support the older behavior, which is to be expected.

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  1. Stefan Blom 353K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-02-23T08:45:43+00:00

    Of course, a potential problem with allowing tab stops outside the margin is that they may end up outside of the page. Similarly, a tab stop in a table cell may end up (say) 3 inches from the left cell margin in a cell whose width is 2 inches.

    Both of these situations make the tab stops difficult to deal with, and they support the idea of preventing tab stops in the margin. I don't remember, but the explanation given when Word stopped supported tab stops in the margin may have been just that.

    Personally, I'm fine with the change, as long as it is possible to add tab stops within a right indent.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-02-18T22:20:18+00:00

    Well this explains why MY meeting minutes don't work correctly anymore.  What a pain.  

    We used to do tables... but that is WAY to diffucult... we like outlining the minutes and tabbing over to the an action column just like Neil-OOTH.  So now we do this how?  What "problem" did Microsoft fix by doing this?

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  3. Stefan Blom 353K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-01-07T20:46:00+00:00

    Assuming that Office 2013 is fully updated, you can add a tab stop to the right of a right indent, but not outside the page margin. The limitation is that you can't click the ruler to set such a tab stop; you must use the Tabs dialog box—or, since you are using styles, do it via Format | Tabs in the Modify Style dialog box.

    If you save your document to *.doc format, tab stops outside the margin will be recognized.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-01-07T20:36:36+00:00

    To me this is a retrograde step.  Entirely with styles, we created a template in W2007 for classic-layout minutes, which used a bar-tab-stop at 15.5cm to produce the classic action column, then right-indent to stop normal paragraph text going over the bar, then a right-tab-stop at 17cm to enable someone's initials to be put in the column to the right of the bar.  It all worked fine, but doesn't any more...

    In my view, putting minutes into a table is a dreadful way of doing it, but this might be the only remaining way to get the formatting we want in our minutes.  Please can you reinstate the ability to use a tab stop outside the right-indent and, indeed, outside the page margin?  The styles put it in, but Word doesn't use it!

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