How to Delete All Tab Stops in Word

Tab stops in Word are horizontal markers for keeping your text aligned.

When you press the tab key on your keyboard, it moves the cursor to a tab stop. Tabs can be helpful when used creatively and carefully. Otherwise, tabs can mess up a document quite badly.

Word offers tab stops to help format paragraphs.

That means you can use tab stops independently in paragraphs in a document.

When you want to change the formatting of a document, you can choose to delete tab stops individually, or all at a time. We will show you both ways.

For instance, you may have inherited a document with tab stops sprinkled all over, and want to remove them to format the document to your liking.

Here, we will show you how you to:

  • Remove tab stops individually from the horizontal ruler
  • Remove tab stops individually or collectively using menus

Let’s begin.


Method #1: Remove tab stops individually from the horizontal ruler

Step #1: Show the tabs

Open the Word document from which you want to remove tab stops. Click on the Home tab on the top menu to change the ribbon.

Click on the Show/Hide control to show all hidden characters.

You should be able to see the tabs in your document.

Step #2: Show the ruler

Click on the View tab on the top menu bar to change the ribbon.

Click on Ruler and ensure a tick-mark appears within the small square on the left.

Word now shows the horizontal ruler.

Notice the presence of tab stops in the ruler for the paragraph indicated by the cursor, and how the text aligns to them.

Step #3: Remove the tab stop

Click on one of the tab stops and drag it off the ruler.

The tab stop vanishes from the ruler and Word realigns the text to the other tab stops.

Remove other tab stops until you are satisfied with the result.

Notice that although you have removed the tab stops, all tabs are still present in the document.

You can remove them individually by selecting and deleting them, or collectively using the Find and Replace dialog (Ctrl+H).


Method #2: Remove tab stops individually or collectively using menus

Step #1: Show the tabs

Open the Word document from which you want to remove tab stops.

Click on the Home tab on the top menu to change the ribbon.

Click on the Show/Hide control to show all hidden characters. You should be able to see the tabs in your document.

Select the entire text in your document by pressing Ctrl and A together on your keyboard (Ctrl+A).

Step #2: Open the Tab options

Click on the pointer on the right side of Paragraph to open the Paragraph Settings. Click on Tabs in the left hand bottom corner to open the Tabs options.

Step 3: Remove tab stops

Word has listed all the tab stops on the left side of Tab stops to be cleared.

Click to select any one you want to remove, and click on Clear.

Word will remove the selected tab stop. If you want to clear all tab stops simultaneously, click on Clear All.

Click on Ok to close all options and return to the document.

Notice that although you have removed the tab stops, all tabs are still present in the document.

You can remove them individually by selecting and deleting them, or collectively using the Find and Replace dialog (Ctrl+H).


Conclusion

You can format the paragraphs in your document with tabs and tab stops. They are easy to remove both individually and collectively, once you follow our step-by-step instructions above.

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