Word for Microsoft 365 Outlook for Microsoft 365 Word 2021 Outlook 2021 Word 2019 Outlook 2019 Word 2016 Outlook 2016 Word 2013 Outlook 2013 Word 2010 Outlook 2010 Word 2007 Outlook 2007 More…Less
You can change the spacing between characters of text for selected text or for particular characters. In addition, you can stretch or compress an entire paragraph to make it fit and look the way that you want it to.
Change the spacing between characters
Selecting Expanded or Condensed alters the spacing between all selected letters by the same amount. Kerning alters the spacing between particular pairs of letters — in some cases reducing and in other cases expanding the space depending upon the letters.
Expand or condense the space evenly between all the selected characters
-
Select the text that you want to change.
-
On the Home tab, click the Font Dialog Box Launcher, and then click the Advanced tab.
Note: If you’re using Word 2007 the tab is called Character Spacing.
-
In the Spacing box, click Expanded or Condensed, and then specify how much space you want in the By box.
Kern the characters that are above a particular size
Kerning refers to the way spacing between two specific characters is adjusted. The idea is to give a better looking result by reducing the spacing between characters that fit together nicely (such as «A» and «V») and increasing the spacing between characters that don’t.
-
Select the text that you want to change.
-
On the Home tab, click the Font Dialog Box Launcher, and then click the Advanced tab.
Note: If you’re using Word 2007 the tab is called Character Spacing.
-
Select the Kerning for fonts check box, and then enter the point size in the Points and above box.
Stretch or scale the text horizontally
When you scale the text, you change the shapes of the characters by percentages. You can scale text by stretching it or by compressing it.
-
Select the text that you want to stretch or compress.
-
On the Home tab, click the Font Dialog Box Launcher, and then click the Advanced tab.
Note: If you’re using Word 2007 the tab is called Character Spacing.
-
In the Scale box, enter the percentage that you want.
Percentages above 100 percent stretch the text. Percentages below 100 percent compress the text.
Change the line spacing
To increase or decrease the amount of vertical space between lines of text within a paragraph, the best method is to modify the style the paragraph uses.
-
Find the style you’re using in the Styles gallery on the Home tab.
-
Right-click the style you want to change and select Modify.
-
Near the center of the dialog box you’ll find the line spacing buttons that let you select single, 1.5x or double spaced. Choose the spacing you want to apply and click OK.
If you’d like to apply more specific line spacing to the style, clickthe Format button at the bottom left corner of the Modify Style dialog box and select Paragraph. The Line spacing drop-down lets you select or set more specific line spacing.
For more information on modifying styles in Word, see: Customize styles in Word.
See also
-
Using Styles in Word — a free, 10-minute video training course.
-
Change the font size
-
Set page margins
-
Align text left or right, center text, or justify text on a page
-
Change the line spacing in Word
Do you have a question about Word that we didn’t answer here?
Post a question in the Word Answers Community.
Help us improve Word
Do you have suggestions about how we can improve Word? Let us know by providing us feedback. See How do I give feedback on Microsoft 365? for more information.
Need more help?
The space between certain words is larger than between other words; I’d like the spacing to be uniform, unless changing it is necessary to make the words fit on one line. Note, that the problem is present even on lines (such as titles) that are much shorter than the width of the page without margins. The text I’m working on is left-aligned, although I tried all the other kinds of alignment.
asked Nov 11, 2013 at 5:06
3
If there seems to be larger than normal spaces between the words when typing in Word 2010, go to:
File> Options > Advanced > Display > Click on: “Optimize character positioning for layout rather than readability”
This will reduce the space size between the words. Will look like it did in Word 2003.
answered Jun 4, 2014 at 4:42
1
I was puzzled by an extra 1/2″ or so of spacing between a couple words here and there in a document I inherited from someone else. On closer inspection, I noted that it appeared on the same place on each page, the first line center of each page. And I noticed that there was a page number above each gap at top of page.
I’m still not sure exactly how or why it does this, but I found if I increased the size of the header by dragging it’s lower margin down a bit, that seem to give more leeway to this hidden protected zone around the page number, and the elusive gap went away.
answered Dec 15, 2015 at 13:18
I had this problem with an entire book that I was editing with an online text editor. When I copied back to my Word doc, I got giant spaces between some words that I couldn’t eliminate. If I backspaced, the words would close together. Here was my solution:
Edit-Cut the entire document that you want to correct.
Go to Paste Special, and paste back in by selecting Styled Text
You will lose some of your document setups, like text size, and paragraph indents. These are easily and quickly corrected. You won’t lose italics, and bolds. The corrections only take a few minutes.
You can use Paste Special and select Unformatted, but you will lose all formatting like subscript, superscript, colors, underlines, fonts, and bolds.
Both will eliminate the spacing problem. It’s up to you which will work best for you. In my case, Styled Text worked best.
answered Dec 16, 2015 at 20:03
SteveSteve
212 bronze badges
You have to correct the spacing between the words. Here’s one way to do this:
- Select the text you want to edit
- Right Click and select Font
- Advanced tab and the chose the spacing you need.
Here’s the screen shot:
answered Nov 11, 2013 at 5:57
1
I know you say you tried all forms of justification, but it still sounds as if you are somehow using «Force Justify».
If you use «Justify» as the alignment, Word will increase word spacing as necessary to keep the right margin straight. If you then press Shift-Enter at the end of the last line of text, that line is also stretched from margin to margin, regardless of how much or how little text is on the line.
answered Jun 4, 2014 at 5:07
hdhondthdhondt
4,0662 gold badges14 silver badges15 bronze badges
I got to this question via my sister having difficulty with a similar sounding issue.
For her, it turned out she had accidentally «justified» the text, rather than having it left aligned. (Teamviewer is a godsend)
If this helps save anyone else a panic, try selecting some of the problem text and pressing Ctrl—L for left-alignment. Alternatively you might want it centre-aligned which is Ctrl—E.
answered Apr 30, 2015 at 10:42
Martin LyneMartin Lyne
832 silver badges10 bronze badges
The word positioning is optimized for printing, not for the screen. Letters have (slightly) different widths on different devices, and the spaces between words is where Word collects the extra.
In other words, if it would look perfect on the screen, it would not print nicely (or not even fit in a line anymore), and you would probably hate that even more.
You can try to change your default printer, and the layout should subtle change, but because printing is different from screens, it might not give you what you want with any printer.
I understand that this logic comes from a time where the ultimate goal of a word document was the printed paper, which today is not necessarily correct anymore, but that’s how they built it.
answered Dec 15, 2015 at 13:26
AganjuAganju
9,8843 gold badges21 silver badges40 bronze badges
I discovered an efficient way to adjust spacing between words. And i don’t mean the incorrect answer of adjusting the general distances between all characters.
- Ctrl+H
- then switch to the find tab.
- in the ‘find what’ box simply press the space bar once
- choose reading highlight, ‘highlight all’
- switch back to the replace tab
- in the ‘replace what’ box press the space bar once
- choose ‘MORE’
- ‘Format’
- ‘font’
- select the advanced tab, ‘spacing’, and condense the spacing by how much you like, experiment to get the desired effect.
So what you are doing is changing the size of the space between i guess the edges of a space character, and the letters. that way you will narrow the spaces between words, without cramming letters into each other!
Alternately you could actually change the size of the font for all the spaces, but this could possibly cause problems for other things.
motto: Ctrl+H is your friend.
answered Aug 28, 2015 at 8:13
Did you try doing Shift + Enter?
answered Dec 18, 2015 at 14:23
1
Many of us over a certain age endured a high school typing class on a (gasp!) real typewriter. Between nerve-wracking speed tests and paper jams, we were taught to put two spaces after periods in order to make individual sentences easier to identify. Today, the extra space is frowned upon, but those of us who survived an entire semester with one of those metal monsters may find it hard to break the two-space habit. If that’s you (and it’s certainly me), here is a quick tutorial on how to find and delete extra spaces in Microsoft Word.
This tutorial is also available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.
Watch more than 100 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel.
The images shown below are from Word for Microsoft 365. These steps also apply to Word 2021, Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010.
Delete Extra Spaces Using Word’s Find and Replace Tool
1. Select the Home tab.
2. Select Replace in the Editing group.
3. Ensure you are in the Replace tab in the Find and Replace dialog box.
4. Place your cursor in the Find what text box and press the space bar twice to add two spaces. (The text box will appear empty.)
5. Place your cursor in the Replace with text box and press the space bar once to add one space. (The text box will appear empty.)
6. Select your preferred replacement option:
- Replace replaces only the current occurrence of a double space with a single space.
- Replace All replaces all the double spaces with single spaces. If you choose this option, a dialog box will appear telling you how many replacements have been made.
- Find Next locates the next double space in the document without replacement.
7. Select the Close button to close the Find and Replace dialog box when you are finished.
Note that you can also customize Word to flag extra spaces between words and sentences as you type and then correct each occurrence individually.
Spruce up the formatting in your Word docs
What to Know
- To fix spacing between words, go to Find and Replace. Enter a space in both fields, then go to More > Format > Font and choose a font size.
- To adjust spacing between characters, go to Home, select Expand (the down-arrow) next to Font, and select the Advanced tab.
- To change spacing between lines, go to Home and select Expand (the down-arrow) next to Paragraph and adjust the Spacing options.
This article explains how to fix spacing in Word 2021, 2019, 2016, and Word for Microsoft 365.
How to Fix Spacing Between Words in Word
Using different fonts or font sizes in your document can lead to inconsistent spacing between words. Follow these steps to adjust the spacing between words without affecting the space between letters:
To show paragraph breaks and spaces, go to the Home tab and select the Show/Hide icon (¶) in the Paragraph group.
-
Highlight the text you want to change and select the Home tab. Press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Cmd+A (Mac) to highlight the entire document.
-
Select Replace in the Editing group.
On Mac, go to Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace, then select the Replace tab.
-
Click in the Find what text field and press your spacebar to create a space.
-
Click in the Replace with field and press your spacebar to create a space.
-
Select More to expand the window.
-
Select Format and choose Font.
-
Under Size, choose the font size you use most consistently throughout the document, then select OK.
-
Select Replace All.
-
In a new window, Word will report the number of replacements. Select Yes to apply changes to the entire document, or select No to change only the highlighted text.
The spacing between words should now be consistent. You can now close the Find and Replace window.
Don’t add multiple spaces between words because it makes formatting the entire document more difficult.
You can justify text in Word if you want to expand word spacing so the right margin is always straight (like a newspaper column).
How Do I Fix Spacing Between Characters?
To adjust the spacing between characters (letters, numbers, symbols, etc.), follow these steps:
-
Highlight the text you want to change and select the Home tab.
-
Next to Font, select Expand (the down-arrow).
-
Go to the Advanced tab. To stretch or compress the text, increase or decrease Scaling. For Spacing, choose Expanded or Condensed to adjust the spacing between all characters.
Select Kerning for fonts to enable text kerning. This feature automatically adjusts the spacing between characters to be more aesthetically pleasing. You can choose to kern characters above a certain size.
How to Fix Line Spacing in Word
Follow these steps to change the amount of space between lines within a paragraph:
To adjust the spacing between paragraphs, go to the Design tab, select Paragraph Spacing and choose from the options. For single spacing, choose No Paragraph Space.
-
Highlight the text you want to change and select the Home tab.
-
Next to Paragraph, select Expand (the down-arrow).
-
In the Spacing section, manually set the amount of space before and after line breaks, or choose one of the options under Line spacing. Select the Line and Page Breaks tab for more advanced options like text wrapping and pagination settings.
When you’re done, select OK to save changes.
FAQ
-
How do I change the tab spacing in Word?
The quickest way to set tab stops is to click the ruler where you want a tab. Alternatively, go to the Home tab and select Paragraph Settings in the Paragraph group. Next, select the Tabs button. Finally, set the desired Tab stop position, click Set, and click OK.
-
How do I fix the spacing between bullet points in Word?
To change line spacing between bullets in a list, select the list and then click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher. On the Indents and Spacing tab, under Spacing, clear the Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style check box.
Thanks for letting us know!
Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day
Subscribe
When working with an important document, you always want it to be perfect. Sometimes you may want to check whether there are extra spaces in the file and remove them if any. This is different from changing the spacing between letters or words. Please follow the steps below for details:
Step 1: Select the whole document by using shortcut «Ctrl+A»; or if you prefer using the ribbon commands, please click «Select All» in the «Home» tab;
Step 2: To open the «Find and Replace» window using shortcut «Ctrl+H» or click the «Replace» command in the «Home» tab (see above);
Step 3: Type two spaces in the «Find what» box, and type one space in the «Replace with» box;
Step 4: Click «Replace All» at the bottom to remove the extra spaces between words.
Similarly, you can change the spaces between words from one to multiple following the steps above. In the step 3, type one space in the «Replace with» box and type multiple spaces (e.g., 2 spaces) in the «Replace with» box, the click «Replace All» to change one space to multiple spaces. This will only increase the spacing between words, but not the spacing between letters.