How to Do a Hanging Indent on Google Docs

Start by selecting the specific text you want to format. In most academic papers, this will be your Works Cited, References, or Bibliography page. You can select a single citation or highlight the entire list at once. Avoid selecting the page title (e.g., 'Works Cited'), as titles should remain centered and should not have a hanging indent applied. Ensure there are no extra spaces or manual line breaks within the citations before proceeding to the next step.

With the text highlighted, look at the top menu bar. Click on Format, then hover over Align & indent. A sub-menu will appear; click on Indentation options at the bottom of that list. This opens a dialog box where you can precisely control the margins and indents for your selected text. While you can use the ruler tool at the top of the document to do this manually, using the menu is more accurate and prevents common alignment errors.

In the Indentation options dialog box, locate the dropdown menu labeled Special indent. Click the dropdown and select Hanging. By default, Google Docs will set the indent value to 0.5 inches. This is the standard requirement for almost all academic style guides. If your professor requires a different measurement, you can change the number in the box to the right of the dropdown. Once the settings are correct, click the blue Apply button to update your document.