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Leader characters such as dotted, dashed, or solid lines in Word documents can draw the reader's eye across space in a line. You can automatically insert leader characters to fill the space used before a tab stop. You use tab stops to line up columns of text.

Dotted leader line characters in a list

Insert a line of leader characters

1. Position the cursor on the line where you want to insert the leader characters, or select the paragraph in which you want to set a tab stop.
2. On the Format menu, click Tabs.
3. Under Tab stop position, type the position for a new tab, or select an existing tab stop to which you want to add leader characters.
4. Under Alignment, select the alignment for text typed at the tab stop.
5. Under Leader, click the leader option you want, and then click OK.
6. In your document, press TAB to insert leader characters, and then enter text at the tab stop.

If you create a table of contents by using the Table of Contents tab in the Index and Tables dialog box, you can select an option in the Tab leader box to add dots, lines, or dashes between entries and page numbers.