Bullet lists in Microsoft Word for Windows

Define New Bullet

There are three buttons across the top in the dialog.

  • • Symbol: Clicking this button opens the Symbol dialog. This dialog allows you to choose from hundreds of symbols.
  • • Picture: Clicking this opens a dialog that allows you to search your hard drive for an image, search your OneDrive account for an image, or search the Web with Bing.
  • • Font: Clicking this opens the Font dialog. The dialog allows you to choose the font, change its style, its size and its effects.

There is an alignment drop-down menu. It has three choices:

  • • Left
  • • Centered
  • • Right

When you are done, click the OK button.

Symbol

Click this opens a “Symbol” dialog that allows the user to choose from hundreds of different symbols as bullet points.

Double-click the desired one and it will be inserted in the “Enter formatting for number” text box and “Number style for this level” drop-down menu, so it can be used again in this document.

The dialog also can be accessed by clicking the “Symbol” button in the “Define New Bullet” dialog.

Font

This opens a Font dialog where the user can choose a font and make many adjustments to it.

Picture

It is possible to use a picture as a bullet point. This can either be an image from the hard drive, the OneDrive account connected to the computer, or a Bing search.

This is the same as clicking the Picture button in the “Define New Bullet” dialog.

Select “New Picture” from the drop-down menu, and the Insert Pictures dialog opens.

From a File:

Clicking this opens a different “Insert Pictures” dialog that allows the user to search his hard drive and other drives attached to his computer for a desired image.

Once the desired image is found, double- click it, and it will be inserted in the “Enter formatting for” text box and the “Number style sheet for this dialog”.

Alternatively, the user can click on the desired image, then click the Insert button.

A new entry will be in the “Number stylesheet for this dialog” drop-down menu, called Picture. It has the image that was just selected next to it.

Bing Image Search

For the Bing search, type in a few keywords. Then press Enter or Return on the keyboard. The Insert Picture dialog will be replaced with a Search Results dialog.

The term cat brings up several results. Scroll to see more.

There are several filters to choose from to narrow or expand the search results.

Double-click the desired image to insert it. Like inserting an image from the File, the Bing image will be inserted in the “Enter formatting for number” text box and “Number style for this level”, so it can be used again in the current document.

OneDrive – Personal

Click this item changes the dial to an Online Pictures dialog, that allows a user to search through his OneDrive account for a desired image.

Double-click the desired image to insert it. Like inserting an image from the File or Bing, the image will be inserted in the “Enter formatting for number” text box and “Number style for this level”, so it can be used again in the current document.

In Word 2016 for Windows, there are three types of lists:

  • Bullets
  • Numbering
  • Multilevel lists

The list types can be accessed through the Home ribbon, in the Paragraph section. The Bullets and Numbering ones can also be accessed through the context menu. The multilevel list can be a combination of numbering and bullets lists.

This page is about Bullet lists

When you click the bullet icon in the ribbon or context menu, the standard bullet point is inserted into a document. It is indented and a cursor follows it.

Word has more than one type of bullet point. The bullet library has several other choices. It has eight choices. The below image is of the drop-down menu that appears.

Bullet Gallery in Microsoft Word for Windows
The Gallery for bullet points contains at least two sections: Bullet Library and Document Bullet. Click the desired bullet to insert into the document.

There are many more choices than just eight. You can use pictures or choose from hundreds of symbols.

Click the arrow next to the drop-down for the bullet icon.
When the menu appears, click the Define New Bullet item. This opens the Define New Bullet dialog.