Tab a paragraph

Let’s say there’s a paragraph with 5 lines of text.
If I click on Tab at the beginning of the first line, that tab affects only that line. That’s perfect.

Using Ms Word if I click on Tab at the beginning of other line (2nd, 3rd …) the tab affects the whole paragraph.
That’s what I want to do.
Is there a shortcut for that in Libre Office Writer?

Thanks in advance!
I hope I have made myself clear. I’m sorry if my English is not good enough.

LibreOffice Writer is based on other principles than M$ Word. One of these principles is to define very rigorously what a paragraph is, notably its geometry.

You do that with a paragraph style. To ease switching from Word to Writer, there are substitutes for long-standing Word habits but these substitutes tend to create a real mess when you want afterwards to revise your formatting.

In Writer, a tab inserts a tab character in your text and this is what you usually want, whatever the position of the cursor when you press tab. Remember that line wrap is a consequence of the width of words and has no fixed position. So what is the beginning of the second line after edition?

The exception to this rule is tab at head of list item where tab controls the item level within the list hierarchy. This is also valid for heading because heading are also a list.

Now back to your paragraph. A paragraph extends from the left margin to the right margin. The paragraph style can add extra space on one or both sides with a parameter called indent. There is even a special indent for the first line to create an alinea.

If you are not accustomed to work with styles, I recommend you read the Writer Guide and begin to practice styling.

The substitute here is to work with the horizontal ruler.

  • right indent is controlled by the triangular cursor at right
  • the cursor at left is double-shaped
    • the lower up-pointing triangle controls the left indent and simultaneously moves the upper down-pointing triangle
    • the upper down-pointing triangle controls first line indent

This is how you set your paragraph geometry. Note that you should never indent your first line with a tab because it interacts with the tabs you could have set for formatting the running lines of your paragraph.

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Thanks a lot for your quick answer and all this information! Very useful indeed.