FORMATTING YOUR RESUME
with Microsoft Word or Google Docs
When creating a resume, it’s important to delineate clear sections, draw attention to the most important parts of the resume and maintain consistent formatting throughout. This guide promotes the best formatting practices suggested by the College of Communication Internship Program, as well as a walkthrough of customizing margins, columns, horizontal lines and tab stops in both Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
Fonts & Font Sizes
It’s best to use classic, easy-to-read fonts in your resume. This is especially important because many employers use applicant tracking system (ATS) software to automatically analyze and sort job applications, and these programs don’t always correctly interpret complex fonts. You could use serif fonts (fonts with stems/tails) like Times New Roman, Cambria, Georgia, Garamond or Book Antiqua, or you could use sans-serif fonts (fonts without stems/tails) like Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana or Trebuchet. Be sure to only use common fonts! Don’t download a unique font that may not convert correctly to a recruiter’s computer.
You may also choose to use two fonts: one for your name/section titles and the other for the main content of your resume. More than two fonts will start to distract the reader, so stick with one or two. See our creative resume guide for several examples of well-paired fonts.
Keep the font size of your body text between 10 and 12 points so that it isn’t too small to read. Make the size of your name about twice as large as your body font size. You may choose to make your headings and subheadings a bit larger than your body text (11 – 14 points) for emphasis, but you can also emphasize headers by using capitalization, italics, bold or underlines.
Font Emphases (Italics, Bold, Underlines)
You can draw your reader’s eye to section headings and important information by using capitalization, italics, bold or underlines in your section headings and subheadings. Use these font emphases sparingly. Pick one or two stylizations and implement them consistently throughout your resume. See our resume samples for examples of successful stylization.
Setting Margins
Although most academic assignments may require you to use 1” margins, it’s best to use smaller margins on your resume to fill most of the space with text. You may find that the best margin size for maximizing space without printing errors is 0.5″ all around.
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Microsoft Word
To change your margins, click the Layout tab and then click “Margins” on the far left. You can either select one of the pre-set margin styles in the dropdown, or click “Custom Margins” at the bottom to set your own margins.
Google Docs
To change your margins, click the File tab and scroll all the way down to “Page setup.” Fill in your values for the top, bottom, left and right margins, and then click “OK.”
Using Columns
You may choose to use two columns within sections of your resume, like this:
RELEVANT COURSEWORK
Digital Cinema Production I
Editing I
Film Structure
Sound Design I
Creative Writing
Adobe Workshop
You could also use three columns:
RELEVANT COURSEWORK
Digital Cinema Production I
Editing I
Film Structure
Sound Design I
Creative Writing
Adobe Workshop
Note: This section is best viewed on a laptop or computer monitor, as formatting may not appear correctly on a tablet or mobile phone.
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Microsoft Word
To put a section into multiple columns, first write all your points in one column:
RELEVANT COURSEWORK
Digital Cinema Production I
Editing I
Film Structure
Sound Design I
Creative Writing
Adobe Workshop
Highlight all the points under the section title that you want to put into columns (in this case, everything under “Relevant Coursework”). Then, select the number of columns you want in the “Columns” dropdown under the Layout tab.
If you want to put your entire resume into two columns, as seen in our creative resume samples, it’s best to use a design program like Photoshop or GIMP (which is free) to format your text boxes accordingly. It is technically possible to do so in Word by creating custom columns, but you will very likely not get the results you envisioned.
Google Docs
To put a section into multiple columns, first write all your points in one column:
RELEVANT COURSEWORK
Digital Cinema Production I
Editing I
Film Structure
Sound Design I
Creative Writing
Adobe Workshop
Highlight all the points under the section title that you want to put into columns (in this case, everything under “Relevant Coursework”). Then, select the number of columns you want in the “Columns” dropdown under the Format tab.
If you want to put your entire resume into two columns, as seen in our creative resume samples, it’s best to use a design program like Photoshop or GIMP (which is free) to format your text boxes accordingly. It is technically possible to do so in Google Docs by creating a 2×1 table and adjusting the borders as needed, but you will very likely not get the results you envisioned.
Inserting Horizontal Lines
Some people include a horizontal line under every section heading to clearly separate each block of their resume.
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Microsoft Word
The easiest way to insert a line under your section headings is to type your section heading, then press Enter to drop down to the next line. Then, type three hyphens in a row for a thin line or three underscores for a thicker line, and press Enter. This line will appear right under the text above it. Avoid using the “Shapes” tool to draw a line, as it will create awkward spacing.
Google Docs
The easiest way to insert a line under your section headings is to first highlight a heading. Then, go to the Format tab, mouse over “Paragraph styles” and then click “Borders and shading.”
In the “Borders and shading” menu, select the bottom line in the “Position” section. Then, you can customize the width of your line (“Border width”) and how close the line is to the text above it (“Paragraph padding”). Click “Apply” when you’re finished. A line with a 1-point width and zero points of paragraph padding will look like this:
If you feel that your line is too close to the text below it, highlight that text underneath, go to the Format tab, mouse over “Line & paragraph spacing” and click “Add space before paragraph.” For example, adding a space to the above example would look like this:
Customizing Tab Stops
It’s very common to see job information aligned to the left and dates of employment aligned to the right in a resume. This also makes the resume easier to read and cleaner to look at, as the page looks more balanced and there isn’t too much text all in one place. For example, your “Relevant Experience” section might look like this:
Artist (Freelance), Self-Employed | Chicago, IL
June 2017 – Present
-
Design, develop, and deliver art pieces to clients according to precise specifications.
-
Create abstract sculptures for display in local establishments, including restaurants and retail shops.
Photography Intern, Chicago Blackhawks | Chicago, IL
June 2017 – Present
-
Cropped, captioned, toned and applied metadata to photos while maintaining photo archive.
In order to achieve this effect, you’ll need to set custom “tab stops.”
Note: This section is best viewed on a laptop or computer monitor, as formatting may not appear correctly on a tablet or mobile phone.
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Microsoft Word
First, type all your text on the left:
Artist (Freelance), Self-Employed | Chicago, IL June 2017 – Present
Then, under the main Home tab, click the little box and arrow at the bottom right of the “Paragraph” section to bring up the “Paragraph Settings” menu.
From that pop-up menu, click the “Tabs” button on the bottom left.
Under “Alignment,” select the “Right” bubble. Then, set your desired “Tab stop position” where you want your right-aligned text to end. You may find it most visually appealing to set this tab stop at 7.5″ if you’re using 0.5″ margins or 7.0″ if you’re using 1″ margins. Press “Set” and then “OK.”
Now, you should be able to align text on both the left and right. Put your cursor immediately before the text that you want to move to the right (in this case, before “June 2017 — Present“). Press Tab, and the text should move all the way to your tab stop on the right:
Artist (Freelance), Self-Employed | Chicago, IL
June 2017 – Present
Google Docs
First, type all your text on the left, and don’t click the blinking cursor away from that line of text:
Artist (Freelance), Self-Employed | Chicago, IL June 2017 – Present
Then, click anywhere on the ruler at the top of the document, and select “Add right tab stop.”
Once the left-facing triangle appears, you can drag it to where you want your right-aligned dates to end. You may find it most visually appealing to drag it to the down-facing pointer on the rightmost side of the ruler, as this denotes your margin.
Now, you should be able to align text on both the left and right. Put your cursor immediately before the text that you want to move to the right (in this case, before “June 2017 — Present“). Press Tab, and the text should move all the way to your tab stop on the right:
Artist (Freelance), Self-Employed | Chicago, IL
June 2017 – Present
Your tab stop will only apply to the text line where you set it, so if you want to use that tab stop again for a new line, be sure to follow these steps again with your cursor on the new line of text that you want to edit.
