How to Clear All Tab Stops in Word 2013

The default tab behavior in Microsoft Word 2013 is for a tab location at every half inch. But the needs of your document might dictate that this tab positioning is not ideal, causing you to create your own custom tab stops.

But if you find later that your added tab stops are not helpful, or if you are working on a document that has tab stops in place, then you may be looking for a method to quickly delete all of the tab stops that have been added to the document.

Fortunately, Microsoft Word 2013 has a tab menu where you can create and remove tab stops in your document.

You can even delete all of the custom tab stops at once by selecting the entire document, then clearing all of the tab stops that have been applied to the selected text.

Deleting All of the Tab Stops from a Document in Word 2013

The steps in this article will show you how to clear all of the tab stops that have been added to the document that is currently open in Microsoft Word 2013.

Step 1: Open your document in Microsoft Word 2013.

Tab stops are set at the document level, so you need to open the document that contains the tab stops that you wish to clear.

Step 2: Click somewhere inside the document, then press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to select the entire contents of the document.

select all of the document text

Step 3: Click the Home tab at the top of the window.

click the Home tab in word 2013

Step 4: Click the small Paragraph Settings button at the bottom-right corner of the Paragraph section of the navigational ribbon.

open the word 2013 paragraph settings menu

Step 5: Click the Tabs button at the bottom-left corner of the window.

open the word 2013 tabs menu

Step 6: Click the Clear All button to delete the tab stops, then click the OK button to close the window.

clear all tabs in word 2013

Now that you know how to clear all tab stops in Word 2013, you will be able to quickly remove every existing one from your document.

Would you like to remove all of the formatting that has been applied to a selection of text in a Word document? learn how to clear all formatting in Word 2013 and restore your document content to its’ default style.

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