Some formatting applies to a whole paragraph rather than individual characters — alignment, spacing, and lists.
Left, center, right, and justify are four buttons in the Home tab's Paragraph group — justify stretches each line to reach both margins evenly, the look most printed books use.
Controls how much room sits between lines and between paragraphs. Double-spacing for a formal document or assignment is a common school and report requirement.
Turns selected lines into a bulleted or numbered list with one click. Tab indents a list item to a sub-level; Shift+Tab un-indents it.
A first-line indent pushes in only the first line of a paragraph — the traditional look for essay paragraphs. A hanging indent does the opposite, indenting every line except the first — the shape a bibliography or reference list uses. Both are set in the Paragraph dialog's Indentation section, not with spaces or the Tab key.