Making an inline quote indicator in Microsoft Word

Question

I have a document with a large number of items I need to respond with line-by-line. I am able to create block quotes using the indent function, but I would like to put a bar as a prefix for each line, similar to what is done for block quotes in Gmail or this question for Outlook.

I can sort of do this by inserting a shape within the indent of each text block, but I am trying to figure out if there is a way to set up Word to do this automatically.

Answer 1

Create an Inline Quote paragraph style with a left border.

1. Base it on your regular Body Text style.
2. You want your custom style to have a left paragraph border. This gives you your line. You will want sufficient padding for the border and may want a hanging indent.
3. Set the indents for your quoted text.
4. Attach a keyboard shortcut to it.
5. Set the style's setting for style for following paragraph to be your Body Text style.

References:

• Modify/Create a Style by Word MVP Suzanne Barnhill
• My article on Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts
• My page on the Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word