Set paragraph margins in Pages on Mac

You can adjust the margins for a paragraph by indenting the entire paragraph, only the first line of a paragraph or all lines in a paragraph except the first line, creating a hanging indent. To set margins for the whole document, see Set document margins.

Change paragraph margins

  1. Select one or more paragraphs, or press Command-A to select all paragraphs in the document.

    Note: Your changes only apply to the paragraphs or text selected.

  2. Do any of the following:

    • In the ruler, drag the margin marker (the orange triangle) to set a new margin.

      The ruler with the left margin control and first line indent control.
    • In the Format  sidebar, click the Style button near the top, then click one of the default indent buttons in the Alignment section to increase or decrease the indent of an entire paragraph.

      Buttons to move paragraphs left and right.

      If the text is in a text box, table or shape, click the Text tab at the top of the sidebar, then click the Layout button.

Note: For margins of less than 2.5 cm (1 inch), adjust the document margins in the Document sidebar (see Set document margins for a word processing document).

You can set the ruler to use points, inches or centimetres; to show the tick marks as percentages; and to place 0 (zero) at the centre of the ruler. See Change ruler units.

Indent the first line in a paragraph

You can indent the first line of text in a paragraph to create a visual break in the document that helps readers scan paragraphs.

  1. Select one or more paragraphs, or press Command-A to select all paragraphs in the document.

  2. Do any of the following:

    • In the ruler, drag the first line indent marker (the orange rectangle) to set a new indent.

      The ruler with controls for setting the left margin and first line indent.

      The first line indent rectangle may be directly above the left margin triangle. If you can’t select just one of the markers, use the controls in the sidebar to set the margin and indent (see the option below).

    • In the Format  sidebar, click the Layout button near the top, click the disclosure arrow next to Indents, then click the arrows next to First.

      If the selected paragraphs are in a text box, table or shape, click the Text tab at the top of the sidebar, then click the Layout button.

Create a hanging indent (or second-line indent)

A hanging indent is a formatting convention commonly used when citing sources, where the first line of text starts at the document margin and subsequent lines are indented.

  1. Select the paragraph you want to format.

  2. In the Format sidebar, click the Layout button near the top.

  3. Click the disclosure arrow next to Indents.

  4. Click the Up arrow or the Down arrow next to Left to change the indent’s depth.

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