See spaces in word

Have you ever worked on a document that included multiple fonts and the printout didn’t quite match what you wanted? Sometimes there was more space between words or sentences than what seemed right, and you didn’t quite know what the problem was?

I have found that the culprit is often my own fault. I may have placed extra spaces between words or sentences in such a manner that the text looks fine on screen, but doesn’t quite fit the bill when finally printed. The solution, of course, is to remove the extra spaces and make sure there are a consistent number of them between both words and sentences. The problem with the solution is that it is often difficult to see how many spaces there really are.

Fortunately, Word allows you to easily see where spaces occur in your documents. All you need to do is follow these steps:

1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and later versions display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
2. Click Display at the left side of the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Display options of the Word Options dialog box.

3. Make sure the Spaces check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

Now, all your spaces appear as small visible dots. It is very easy to tell where two visible dots appear, as opposed to two invisible spaces. Delete any extra spaces you want, as you would delete any other characters, and you will have your document cleaned up in no time.

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…

Show or Hide White Space in Microsoft Word Documents

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated February 9, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 or 365 (Windows)

You can show or hide white space at the top and bottom of pages in Microsoft Word documents. If you hide white space, you won’t be able to see headers, footers or top and bottom margins in Print Layout View. The gray space that typically appears at the top and bottom of pages as you scroll through your document will also disappear. If you want to show or hide spaces between words, you’ll need to click Show/Hide ¶ on the Home tab in the Ribbon.

Print Layout View is the default view in Word. You can click the View tab in the Ribbon and select Print Layout in the Views group to go to this view if necessary.

In Word documents, margins are set for the top and bottom of pages by default and can be changed on the Layout tab in the Ribbon. Headers and footers appear in the top and bottom margin areas (with the exception of floating objects) so if white space is hidden, headers and footers may seem to be missing.

Recommended article: How to Hide Comments in Word (or Display Them)

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Showing or hiding white space using a shortcut

To show or hide white space in Word using a shortcut:

1. Position the cursor at the top of the document (you can press Ctrl + Home to move the cursor to the top of the document).
2. Move the pointer into the gray area just above the first page (below the Ruler) until the pointer turns into an up and down arrow. A message appears to Double-click to show white space or Double-click to hide white space.
3. Double-click. If you are hiding white space, you can also position the pointer in the gray area between pages and then double-click.

If you show or hide white space, this setting will continue in any new documents you create. When white space is hidden, the setting affects not just the white space between pages but anything that is part of the header or footer (including watermarks and other graphics anchored to the header or footer). When you save and close a document, the setting is retained in the document.

If you hide white space, page breaks are still visible in the document. If you print the document, the headers and footers will print even if white space is hidden.

Showing or hiding white space using the Options dialog box

To show or hide white space using the Word Options dialog box:

1. Open a Word document where you want to show or hide white space.
2. Click the File tab in the Ribbon.
3. Select Options. A dialog box appears.
4. In the categories on the left, select Display.
5. In the pane on the right, check or uncheck Show whitespace between pages in Print Layout view.
6. Click OK.

The Options dialog box, with the Display category selected, appears as follows:

Because this feature isn’t obvious, it can cause problems for users if areas in their document seem to be missing (such as headers or footers).

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Fortunately, Word allows you to easily see where spaces occur in your documents….Displaying Spaces in a Document

What is line spacing in MS Word 2010?

A line spacing is the distance between two lines in a Microsoft Word document. You can increase or decrease this distance as per your requirement by following a few simple steps.

How do you show spacing in Word 2010?

Click the Line and Paragraph Spacing command in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. Select the desired spacing option from the drop-down menu. From the drop-down menu, you can also select Line Spacing Options to open the Paragraph dialog box. From here, you can adjust the line spacing with even more precision.

1. Display the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click Display at the left side of the dialog box.
3. Make sure the Spaces check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

How do I change the spacing between lines in Word keyboard?

Changing the line spacing in a Word document is very easy if you remember a few keyboard shortcuts:

1. Pressing Ctrl+5 changes to 1.5 line spacing.
2. Pressing Ctrl+2 changes to double line spacing.
3. Pressing Ctrl+1 will give you single line spacing.

Change the spacing between characters

1. Select the text that you want to change.
2. On the Home tab, click the Font Dialog Box Launcher, and then click the Advanced tab.
3. In the Spacing box, click Expanded or Condensed, and then specify how much space you want in the By box.

How do you do spacing in Word?

Change the line spacing in a portion of the document

1. Select the paragraphs you want to change.
2. Go to Home > Line and Paragraph Spacing.
3. Choose the number of line spaces you want or select Line Spacing Options, and then select the options you want under Spacing.

Why can’t I see my spaces in Word?

The Cause. It turns out there is a fairly simple cause for this: You have a Section Break at the point in your document where you’re seeing this behaviour. You can verify this by hitting ctrl+* (ctrl+shift+8) to show Formatting Marks.

How do I change from double space to single space in Word 2010?

How to type (create,Change TO) single spacing word 2010? Select the double spaced text, then in the “Paragraph” section click on the “Line & Paragraph Spacing” button drop down arrow and choose 1.0 spacing. Also “Ctrl key + 1 will also change the spacing from double to single.

Why does my Word document have dots instead of spaces?

If your Word is only showing spaces as dots. You can turn this off via this simple procedure: Under Formatting marks, uncheck Spaces. If Spaces is clear and All checkbox is selected, de-select it to clear the All checkboxes.

How to fix spacing on word?

1) Hit CTRL+A to select all the text in the document. 2) Hit CTRL+H to open the Find and Replace window. 3) Type two spaces in the Find what field.

What is the spacing between letters in word?

Word sets line spacing at 1.15 as its standard, or default. Supposedly, that extra .15 lines of text makes text more readable than using single spacing, or 1.0.

How do I single space?

How to Single Space in Word – Quick Summary. Click the Design tab at the top of the window. Select the Paragraph spacing option. Choose Custom Paragraph Spacing. Change the Line Spacing option to Single.

What is single space in Microsoft Word?

The default line spacing in Word is set to 1.15, not 1. If you want to have truly single-spaced text, you will need to select Single from the Line Spacing dropdown menu. ”Exactly” will allow you to set an exact spacing between lines, measured in points. There are 72 points to an inch.

If you always want to see the formatting marks in your Word documents, there’s a setting for that.

1. Click File.
2. Click Options.
3. Click Display.
4. Check the formatting marks you want always shown.
5. Click OK.

How do you reveal formatting?

In the “Style Inspector” pane, click the “Reveal Formatting” button to open the “Reveal Formatting” pane. Alternatively, to more quickly open the “Reveal Formatting” pane in Word, select the text to inspect. Then press the “Shift” + “F1” keys on your keyboard.

How do you show hidden formatting in Word?

Show or Hide Formatting Symbols

1. Click Home tab.
2. Click Show/Hide ¶ button. The hidden formatting symbols are now shown. These symbols represent spaces, new paragraphs, page breaks, and other bits of text and page formatting.
3. Click Show/Hide ¶ button again.

How do you reveal formatting in Word for Mac?

Word for Mac OS X

1. From the Word menu, select Preferences….
2. Select View.
3. In the section titled “Nonprinting characters”, check or uncheck the appropriate boxes to view the marks of your choice. Check All to see all formatting marks.
4. To save your changes, click OK.

Which steps can you use to open the Reveal Formatting pane?

Which steps can you use to open the Reveal Formatting pane? Press Shift and F1 at the same time.

How do I fix formatting in Word?

Clear formatting from text

1. Select the text that you want to return to its default formatting.
2. In Word: On the Edit menu, click Clear and then select Clear Formatting. In PowerPoint: On the Home tab, in the Font group, click Clear All Formatting .

How do you show spaces in Word?

Displaying Spaces in a Document

1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options.
2. Click Display at the left side of the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
3. Make sure the Spaces check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.

How do you show spaces in Word Mac?

There’s a keyboard shortcut for toggling invisible characters (like paragraph marks, and spaces, and tabs) in Microsoft Word on a Mac and as far as I know it’s worked in every version, since the very beginning. Command-8 does it. Command-8 to show them, Command-8 again to hide them. Easy as pie!

How do I reveal formatting in Word 2019?

In order to reveal formatting in Word, just press SHIFT + F1 and a dialog window will appear docked to the right side of the screen. Now just click anywhere in your document or select some text and you can see all the formatting applied including the font, language, effects, etc.

Can we edit your document in full screen view?

You can actually use the toolbar to make Word full screen. There’s a command that you can add to the toolbar which then when clicked, opens your document in full-screen mode. Click on the small down-arrow icon in the Quick Access toolbar and a menu will open on your screen.

Where is the Developer tab in Word?

The Developer tab isn’t displayed by default, but you can add it to the ribbon.

1. On the File tab, go to Options > Customize Ribbon.
2. Under Customize the Ribbon and under Main Tabs, select the Developer check box.

How does the document appear in print layout view?

You might keep Microsoft Word primarily in Print Layout view, which displays your document as it would look when printed, complete with margins, page breaks, and other visual elements. But that’s not the only view that Word offers. The Web Layout view displays your documents without margins and page breaks.

Select the Insert tab, then click the Header or Footer command. In our example, we’ll click the Header command. In the menu that appears, select the desired preset header or footer. The header or footer will appear.

How do I view thumbnails in Word?

Browse by page
Click the arrow next to Document Map, and then click Thumbnails. Then click a thumbnail image to go to that page. When you do scroll through your document, Word highlights the page you’re on in the Document Map to show you where you are.

Why can’t I see spaces in Word?

The Cause. It turns out there is a fairly simple cause for this: You have a Section Break at the point in your document where you’re seeing this behaviour. You can verify this by hitting ctrl+* (ctrl+shift+8) to show Formatting Marks.

How do I display non printing formatting marks?

To show non-printing characters in Word, click the “Home” tab in the Ribbon. Then click the “Show/Hide Non-Printing Characters” button in the “Paragraph” button group. The face of the button looks like the paragraph mark (“¶”).

How do you show Formatting in Pages?

Choose View > Show Layout (from the View menu at the top of your computer screen).