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Word 2010 Videos - Bulleted Lists

Sometimes it makes sense to use a list in your text. For example, if you were writing a recipe, you might use a bulleted list of ingredients. Take this one, for example, which I'll be using to make a beef stew. To make this list into a bulleted list, we first of all select all the items, and then click on the Bullets command in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. So now that's a bulleted list.

Do you see how the bullets used here are circles? Well, you don't have to use a circle. If you click on the down arrow, you can choose a different symbol. Let's choose squares for our bulleted list.

Did you notice a snazzy looking bullet in the gallery - here, this one. This is actually a picture, and we'll be looking at how to use pictures as bullets in a later tutorial.

In this example, we looked at changing existing text into a list, but actually you can also start the list off first and then start typing. If we just do that now, we do that by clicking on the Bullets command again and then we just start typing. When we press Enter, then that starts a new list item. And so on.

To extend a list, all we have to do is place the cursor at the end of the final list item and then press Enter and Word will create a new bulleted list item for you. So we can add another entry to the end.

To delete an item, select it - we'll double click on "swede" - and then press the Delete key.

To insert an item within a list, click to the end of one of the list items, press Enter, and you'll see that Word inserts a new bulleted point within the list, and then just start typing.

If you decide that you don't want a bulleted list after all, and want to remove the bullet points, then select all the items in the list and then click on the Bullets command again.

In our list of ingredients here, the order that the list items appear in isn't important. In some lists that you create, though, he order that the list items appear in will be important. For example, if you list the steps that you follow to cook this recipe, those list items should appear in a particular order. In this case a numbered list would be better than a bulleted list and we'll be looking at numbered lists in Word 2010 next.

Next: Alignment Options