How Did They

In an article published in The Atlantic, there is an eye-catching callout of a line written by the author, David Brooks.

If, however, you paste that text into a table, you can use fill color and paragraph indent to create a callout with impact. Here are the steps:

1. Insert a 1-row, 2-column table
2. Set the widths of the first column  to .5 cm (.2 in)
3. Change the background color (or shading) of the first cell to black
4. Paste the text into the second column and set the left and right indents
5. Then, the last step is to turn off the table borders

Below is a diagram of the table with the default borders still on:

Try It!

Part 1: Create the table

1. Coming soon!

Part 2: Format the text

1. Font –
2. Indent –

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Brooks D. History Is Running Backwards. The Atlantic. May 2026:47.