• Home

  • Productivity

  • App tips

App tips

1 min read

How to do a hanging indent on Google Docs

By Jessica Lau · February 2, 2024
Google Docs logo, which is a simplified illustration of a piece of paper with a dogeared corner.

Let's say you're using Google Docs to create a bibliography. If you're following a style guide that calls for hanging indents—like the MLA, APA, or Chicago style guide—here's the easiest way to do a hanging indent on Google Docs

Table of contents

  • What is a hanging indent? 

  • How to do a hanging indent on Google Docs 

What is a hanging indent?

A hanging indent is where all lines of a paragraph, except the first, are indented a half an inch. It's a formatting style often used in bibliographies and works cited entries. 

Example of a bibliography formatted with hanging indents.

How to do a hanging indent on Google Docs

  1. Use the keyboard shortcut to highlight your entire page: Ctrl+A on Windows or command+A on Mac. Or highlight the paragraphs you want to apply hanging indents to. 

  2. Click Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.

    Format dropdown in Google Docs with indentation options highlighted.

  3. In the Special indent section, click the down caret (), and select Hanging

    How to do a hanging indent in Google Docs by formatting the indentation options.

  4. Click Apply

    Example of a bibliography in Google Docs with hanging indents.

That's it. As you add new entries, all lines of your paragraph (except the first) will automatically indent to the right. 

Automate Google Docs

Tinkering with page margins is just a fraction of document prep work. Use Zapier to connect Google Docs with your other apps, so you can automate the rest of your tedious document-related tasks. For example, you can create a Google Docs template and automatically populate it with data from your spreadsheet. Here's a workflow to get you started.  

Copy data from new Google Sheets rows to a Google Doc template

Copy data from new Google Sheets rows to a Google Doc template
  • Google Sheets logo
  • Google Docs logo
Google Sheets + Google Docs

To get started with a Zap template—what we call our pre-made workflows—just click on the button. It only takes a few minutes to set up. You can read more about setting up Zaps here.

Related reading

  • Google Docs formatting tricks to make your files pretty

  • How to remove page breaks in Google Docs with pageless view

  • Google Docs features to improve your workflows

  • How to do subscript and superscript in Google Docs

  • How to change the background color in Google Docs

  • How to add a border in Google Docs

Get productivity tips delivered straight to your inbox

We’ll email you 1-3 times per week—and never share your information.

tags
mentioned apps

Related articles

Improve your productivity automatically. Use Zapier to get your apps working together.

Sign up
See how Zapier works
A Zap with the trigger 'When I get a new lead from Facebook,' and the action 'Notify my team in Slack'