How to Do a Hanging Indent in Word and Google Docs

Every major citation style – APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard – requires a hanging indent on the reference list, and none of the word processors students actually use apply it by default. That mismatch is why “missing hanging indent” shows up on so many graded papers even when every individual citation is formatted correctly.

A hanging indent means the first line of each reference entry sits flush against the left margin, while every subsequent line of that same entry is indented half an inch. Here’s how to set it up correctly in the tools you’re most likely to be using.

Microsoft Word (Windows)

Select all the entries in your reference list.
Go to the Home tab, then click the small arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Paragraph group to open the full Paragraph dialog.
Under Indentation, find the Special dropdown and choose Hanging.
Confirm the indent amount is set to 0.5” (this is the default and matches every major style’s requirement).
Click OK.

Your selected text will reflow immediately, with first lines flush left and wrapped lines indented.

Keyboard Shortcut

If you’d rather skip the dialog box entirely, select your reference entries and press Ctrl + T. This applies a 0.5” hanging indent directly, and pressing it again increases the indent further if you need to adjust it.

Microsoft Word (Mac)

Select all the entries in your reference list.
Go to the Format menu and choose Paragraph.
Under Indentation, find the Special dropdown and select Hanging.
Set the value to 0.5”.
Click OK.

The Mac version of Word uses the same dialog structure as Windows, accessed through the Format menu instead of the Paragraph group’s expand arrow.

Google Docs

Google Docs handles this through the ruler or the paragraph styles menu, depending on which you find faster.

Using the Menu

Select all the entries in your reference list.
Go to Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.
Under Special indent, choose Hanging.
Set the value to 0.5” (or 1.27 cm if your document uses metric units).
Click Apply.

Using the Ruler

Select your reference entries.
Look at the horizontal ruler at the top of the document – you’ll see two triangle markers on the left side, one on top of the other.
Drag the bottom triangle to the 0.5” mark, leaving the top triangle at the margin.

The ruler method is faster once you’re used to it, but the menu method is more precise if you’re doing this for the first time.

Other Word Processors

Word and Google Docs cover most students, but the same setting exists under a different menu path elsewhere:

Apple Pages: Select your reference entries, open the Format sidebar, click the Layout tab, and under Indent, set Before Text to 0” and First to a negative 0.5” – Pages doesn’t have a dedicated “hanging” label, so it’s built from two settings instead of one dropdown.

LibreOffice Writer: Select your entries, go to Format > Paragraph > Indents & Spacing, and under Before Text, set a positive indent, then set First Line to the same value as a negative number. Like Pages, LibreOffice builds a hanging indent from two separate fields rather than a single “Hanging” option.

Setting It as a Default for Future Papers

If you write multiple papers in the same style over a semester, save yourself the repeated setup. In Word, format one entry the way you want it, then update the “Normal” or a custom “Bibliography” paragraph style to match – new documents based on that style will carry the formatting forward. In Google Docs, you can save a document as a template through your institution’s Drive template gallery, or keep a blank reference-list page with the indent pre-applied and duplicate that file for each new paper.

Applying It to Only Part of a Document

If your reference list is one section of a longer document, select only the entries themselves before applying the hanging indent – not the whole paper. Applying it globally will indent your body paragraphs the same way, which isn’t what any citation style wants for running text.

Checking Your Work

After applying the indent, scroll through your reference list and confirm two things: every entry’s first line touches the left margin, and every wrapped second (or third) line sits indented beneath it, not flush with the first line. A common sign the indent didn’t apply correctly is a reference list where every line looks identical – that usually means you selected the wrong text or the setting didn’t save. For a full pre-submission pass over your reference list, our guide on building a reference list from scratch covers the other formatting details graders check alongside the indent itself. If your reference list includes a chapter from an edited book, see our book chapter citation guide for how the editor credit and page range should look before you format the list.

Why This Formatting Detail Exists

The hanging indent isn’t arbitrary – it makes each individual reference entry visually distinct in a long alphabetized list, so a reader scanning down the page can immediately see where one source ends and the next begins. APA Style documents this requirement directly, and MLA and Chicago each specify the same 0.5-inch indent in their own manuals. It’s the same logic behind an annotated bibliography’s indentation, where the annotation itself is indented further still; see our annotated bibliography guide if your assignment requires both a hanging indent and a summary paragraph for each source.

Common Mistakes

Using the Tab key instead of a real hanging indent. Manually tabbing each wrapped line breaks the moment you edit the entry above it and the text reflows.
Applying the indent to the whole document. Select only the reference list before applying it.
Forgetting to reapply it after pasting new entries. Pasted text sometimes carries its own formatting; reselect the whole list and reapply the indent as a final check.
Using an indent value other than 0.5 inches. APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard all specify half an inch (1.27 cm) – don’t eyeball it.
Mixing up “first line indent” and “hanging indent” in the Special dropdown. They’re opposites – first line indent pushes the first line in, hanging indent pushes everything after it in.

Try It with CiteTools

Formatting is the part of citation work that eats time without teaching you anything. Once your reference entries are correctly generated – paste any DOI, URL, or ISBN into CiteTools.io for a properly formatted citation in APA, MLA, Chicago, or any other style – applying the hanging indent above takes under a minute for an entire reference list.