How to Insert a Horizontal Line in Microsoft Word

Give your documents some eye candy

Horizontal lines are a visually appealing way to separate parts of a text and help the document flow better. Lines are one of the easier ways to make your document eye-catching and easy to read.

Here’s how you can insert a line in Microsoft Word to organize your document.

Draw a Line Using Shapes

The first method for adding a horizontal line (or vertical line) in Word is todraw it using the shapes option. To do so:

You can then format the horizontal line by selecting the line and then clicking theShape Formattab (or double-clicking the line).

On the Shape Format tab, you can format the line as follows:

Related:Pesky horizontal lines showing up and you don’t know where they came from? Learn toremove unwanted lines in your Word documents.

How to Insert a Line With Shortcuts

You can also add lines in Word using the AutoFormat feature. Type a few characters, pressEnter, and you have a line. This method doesn’t let you format the line, so you just get the basics. But, if that’s all you need, it’s very fast.

To add a line with AutoFormat:

You can also add different line shapes by typing other types of characters and pressing Enter. You can create the following types of lines this way:

You can then move the line by placing your cursor above the line and pressingEnteras many times as you would like. You can also delete the line by pressingDeleteorBackspace.

Note:This feature is only available on the desktop version of Word and is not available in Microsoft OfficeOnline.

Place Horizontal Lines Using Borders

The final way to insert horizontal lines in Word is by using borders. You can use this to easily add borders wherever you like in a page by adding a border to the top or bottom of a paragraph.

To add page borders, place your insertion point in the paragraph where you’d like to add the border and then follow these instructions:

Beautiful Documents Here We Come

Learning to format well in Word can convert bland and hard-to-read texts into beautiful, flowing documents. Adding horizontal lines is just one of the many tricks you can use to take your Word documents to the next level.

Jake Harfield is an Australian freelance writer whose passion is finding out how different technologies work. He has written for several online publications, focusing on explaining what he has learned to help others with their tech problems. He’s an avid hiker and birder, and in his spare time you’ll find him in the Aussie bush listening to the birdsong.Read Jake’s Full Bio

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How to Insert a Horizontal Line in Microsoft Word#

Draw a Line Using Shapes#

How to Insert a Line With Shortcuts#

Place Horizontal Lines Using Borders#

Beautiful Documents Here We Come#