WD: How to Change Default Tabs Stops Globally (142099)

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When you change the Default Tab Stops option in the Tabs dialog box, Word sets the default tabs stops for the current document only. New documents will not reflect the change.

When you create a new document based on the Normal template, the default tab stop settings occur every 0.5 inch. Therefore, to make certain all new documents have the same default tab settings, you must open the Normal.dot file and make the change to the template. Use the following instructions to modify your Normal template:

1. On the File menu, click Open. Open Normal.dot (Windows) or Normal (Macintosh).
   
   NOTE: To determine the location of Normal.dot, click Options on the Tools menu, click the File Locations tab, and note the path in the User Templates setting.
2. On the Format menu, click Tabs.
3. Change Default Tab Stops to the value you want.
4. Click OK.
5. On the File menu, click Save.
6. Close the template.

Now when you create a new document (based on the Normal template), the default tab stops will be based on the change just made to the Normal template.

NOTE: You can set the default tab stops in any template, following the above procedure, but instead of opening the Normal template, open the template you want and make the same changes in steps 2-5.