Shift + Tab button doesn't decrease indent in Word 2007

I recently bought a new laptop and I installed Office 2007 on it (it had already been installed on other computers before). However, pressing Shift + Tab in Word doesn't decrease indent (It does so on PowerPoint). This does so on my other computers, and I assumed it was a default function in Word 2007. I tried to customize the keyboard shortcut for it, but Word wouldn't accept Tab as a suitable shortcut key (instead of registering Tab as part of the shortcut key combination, it performed the normal Tab function and went to the next gui object). Is there any way to fix this? I can live with it, since all I have to do is make a shortcut without Tab, or just simply click the respective buttons, but the Shift + Tab shortcut is ingrained in my memory and will be hard to unlearn, especially since any other computer I use with Word will use the default shortcut.

The combo you want is Ctrl+M - see these lists of Word keyboard shortcuts:

Microsoft Word 2007 Keyboard Shortcuts

300+ useful Keyboard Shortcuts for Word 2007.

As you found, Ctrl+Tab is used for another function. I suppose you could change that current function key combo to something else in order to free up Ctrl+Tab, then create your new function (I have not tried this).

Regards,
GEWB

Lo and behold I finally found an answer. Ctrl+M wasn't what I was trying to get; I wanted Shift+Tab to work as I am used to it working.

These set of directions are how I fixed it:

Click Office button.
Click Word Options button (located at the bottom).
Click on Proofing.
Click the AutoCorrect Options button.
Click the AutoFormat as You Type tab.
In the "Automatically As You Type" section, make sure the "Set left- and first-indent with tabs and backspaces" checkbox is checked.
Click OK until back to your doc.

JavaTheHutt said:

Lo and behold I finally found an answer. Ctrl+M wasn't what I was trying to get; I wanted Shift+Tab to work as I am used to it working.

These set of directions are how I fixed it:

Click Office button.
Click Word Options button (located at the bottom).
Click on Proofing.
Click the AutoCorrect Options button.
Click the AutoFormat as You Type tab.
In the "Automatically As You Type" section, make sure the "Set left- and first-indent with tabs and backspaces" checkbox is checked.
Click OK until back to your doc.

Good for you, JavaTheHutt! You had to do some serious digging to come up with this customization detail! Rep+ to you for posting the answer to help others trying to do the same function.

The above instructions aren't fixing my Shift-Tab suddenly has stopped working problem. I've restarted Word and everything and yet I cannot use Shift-Tab to go back one tab. As noted in the above, it's as if I'm not even holding down the shift key and it Tab advances instead of Tab go-back.

What else could cause this? I've Googled until my fingers bleed but everything I find only shows the above as the solution and no other reasons as to why it would no longer work.

Sorry for responding to a post that is so old!