Hanging Indent

A Hanging Indent is a special kind of indentation used mainly in lists, particularly Bibliographical entries. In a Hanging Indent, the first line lies along the left margin of your page, and the second line onwards has a slight indentation.

A standard bibliographical entry will have the following format, Hanging Indent included:

To make a Hanging Indent is simple and can be done with any word processing software such as Google Docs or MicroSoft Word.

1. Make sure that your text cursor has selected the paragraph or paragraphs that you want to edit.
2. Make sure that your text ruler is visible. If not, go to your View menu in your program and select Show Text Ruler. On your left hand margin you should see a blue rectangle over a blue triangle, pointing down.
3. Drag the blue triangle to the right and release where you want the indentation to begin. 0.5 inches should be fine. This is your hanging indent, for the second line onwards. This will drag the blue rectangle as well. Don't worry, this is normal.
4. Drag the blue rectangle back to the left hand margin, and leave it at 0.0 inches. This is your initial line margin.

Congratulations! You have created a Hanging Indent in your document!

Note that there is another blue triangle resting on your right-hand margin. You can shift it to control where the right-hand margin of your paragraph will end. Use these elements to fine-tune how your page will look.

Preset Hanging Indents

Alternatively, some word processing software have built in hanging indent options.