Word space before and after

Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Put Your Space Before or After?.

It is not uncommon for page layout designs to call for extra spacing between paragraphs. Word allows you to add extra space either before or after a paragraph. The one you choose is up to you. Remember, however, that the spacing is cumulative. For example, if you have a paragraph that is formatted for 12 points of space after it, followed by a paragraph formatted for 15 points of space before it, then there will be 27 points of space between the paragraphs. You will make your design and layout work much easier if you are consistent in where you add the extra space—either before or after a paragraph.

There is a caveat to my statement that «spacing is cumulative.» Word has a configuration option which, under certain circumstances, can turn off the cumulative nature of spacing. This option is actually part of the style definitions you can create within Word. To see this option, follow these steps:

1. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
2. Click the small down-arrow at the lower-right corner of the Styles group. Word displays the Styles pane.
3. 3 Hover the mouse pointer over a style you want to modify. (As an example, hover over the Normal style.) A down-arrow appears at the right side of the style name.
4. Click the arrow to display some options and then choose the Modify option. Word displays the Modify Style dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Modify Style dialog box.

5. Click the Format button at the bottom-left of the dialog box. Word displays some categories of things you can specify in the style.
6. Choose Paragraph. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box.
7. Make sure the Indents and Spacing tab is displayed. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph dialog box.

Note the checkbox about two-thirds of the way down the dialog box entitled, «Don’t Add Space between paragraphs of the Same Style.» This setting controls whether spacing is cumulative between any two given paragraphs if the two paragraphs use the same style. You can set the option as desired for any of your styles.

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Space Before sets the amount of space before the paragraph. Space After sets the amount of space after the paragraph. Following are the sample paragraphs with Space After set to 12 pt.

Do you change the spacing before or after a paragraph?

Click anywhere in the paragraph you want to change. Go to Layout, and under Spacing, click the up or down arrows to adjust the distance before or after the paragraph. You can also type a number directly.

How do I change the spacing before and after a paragraph in Word?

Change the line spacing in a portion of the document

1. Select one or more paragraphs to update.
2. Go to Home > Line and Paragraph Spacing.
3. Select Line Spacing Options and choose an option in the Line spacing box.
4. Adjust the Before and After settings to change spacing between paragraphs.
5. Select OK.

How do you do a manual line break?

Insert a manual line break

1. Click where you want to break a line.
2. Press SHIFT + RETURN . Word inserts a manual line break ( ). Tip: To view manual line breaks, on the Standard toolbar, click .

How do you fix line breaks in Word?

If you need to remove line breaks from text in MS Word you can do the next simple actions:

1. Ctrl+A to select all text.
2. Ctrl+H to open the Find & Replace dialog box.
3. Click on “Replace All”.
4. Do another search and replace.
5. Finally, we will replace the replacement above for two consecutive hard line breaks.

How do you show spacing in Word?

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

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 get rid of large gaps in text in Word?

I’m not sure what’s going on, but here’s how I fixed it:

1. Highlight the region of the document that has a problem.
2. Right click.
3. Select “Paragraph”
4. Go to “Line and Page Breaks” tab.
5. Uncheck “Keep with next” and also uncheck “Keep lines together”
6. OK.

How do you show formatting changes?

Word for Windows Select Display from the listing at the left. In the section titled “Always show these formatting marks on the screen”, check or uncheck the appropriate boxes to view the marks of your choice. To show or hide them all, select Show all formatting marks. To save your changes, click OK.

How do you show the formatting marks in a document?

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.

The default line spacing in Word is 1.15. By default, paragraphs are followed by a blank line and headings have a space above them.

1. Go to Home > Line and Paragraph Spacing , and then choose Line Spacing Options.

   

2. Under Spacing, choose an option in the Line spacing box.

   

3. Adjust the Before and After settings if you want to change spacing between paragraphs.

4. Select Set as Default.

5. Choose All documents based on the Normal template.

   

6. Select OK.

For more info, see Adjust indents and spacing.

The default line spacing in Word is 1.15. By default, paragraphs are followed by a blank line and headings have a space above them.

1. Go to Home > Line and Paragraph Spacing.

   

2. Select Line Spacing Options, and then choose the options you want under Spacing.

   

3. To change the spacing before or after the selected paragraphs, select the arrow next to Before or After and enter the amount of space that you want.

4. Select Set as Default.

5. Choose All documents based on the Normal template.

6. Select OK.

For more info, see Adjust indents and spacing.

Extra space between paragraphs makes a document easier to read. By default, Word 2007 and above places a bit more space between paragraphs than it does between lines in a paragraph.
Many users of earlier versions of Word created space between paragraphs by pressing the Enter key. This method is not as precise as defining the amount of space. In addition, defining the space has the following advantages:

• You can save your space settings in a style and apply the settings to other paragraphs.
• If you move a paragraph, the Spacing Before and Spacing After settings move with it.
• When you print, Word ignores the Spacing Before setting for the first paragraph on the page. This keeps your top margins uniform.
• When you use the Enter key to create space, Word bases the amount of space between paragraphs on the size of the font. If your font size varies from paragraph to paragraph, the space between paragraphs will vary too.

Spacing is measured in points. There are 72 points per inch. Use the Spacing Before and Spacing After fields on the Page Layout tab to change the spacing between selected paragraphs. Use the Paragraph Spacing option on the Design tab to change the default spacing between paragraphs.

Add Space Before and/or After Paragraphs

1. Place the insertion point in the paragraph you want to change, or select the paragraphs you want to change.
2. Choose the Page Layout tab. The current spacing appears in the Spacing Before and Spacing After fields.
3. Enter the amount of space you want to appear before the paragraph in the Spacing Before field. Word sets the spacing to the amount you entered.
4. Enter the amount of space you want to appear after the paragraph in the Spacing After field. Word sets the spacing to the amount you entered.

Note

You can also use the Paragraph dialog box to set the space before and the space after paragraphs. 1) Select the paragraphs you want to change. 2) Choose the Home tab or the Page Layout tab. 3) Click the dialog box launcher in the Paragraph group. The Paragraph dialog box opens. 4) Choose the Indents and Spacing tab. 5) Enter the amount of space you want to appear before the paragraph in the Spacing Before field. 6) Enter the amount of space you want to appear after the paragraph in the Spacing After field. 7) Click OK. Word sets the spacing to the amount you entered.

Tip

If you do not want space between paragraphs that have the same style, check the Don’t Add Space Between Paragraphs of the Same Style box in the Paragraph dialog box. This option is most frequently used when working with lists.

Is there a quick way to adjust the space before and the space after a paragraph?

If you click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button in the Paragraph group on the Home tab, depending on the current Spacing Before and Spacing After settings, two of the following options will be available: Add Space Before Paragraph, Add Space After Paragraph, Remove Space Before Paragraph, or Remove Space After Paragraph. Click the option you want.

While creating a document in MS Word Office application, the space is often used for clearly identifying where each paragraph starts and ends. By default, MS Word places somewhat more space between two paragraphs than it places between two lines in a paragraph. It is possible to increase or decrease this amount of space that shows before and after paragraphs. This can be done entering amounts in the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ fields in the ‘Paragraph’ section of the ‘Page Layout’ tab. For increasing the amount of space before or after each paragraph, one can use the up arrows next to the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ fields. Down arrows can be used for decreasing the amount of space before or after each paragraph.

How to Add Space Before or After Paragraphs?

• First of all, one has to place the cursor anywhere in the second paragraph
• Now, choose the ‘Page Layout’ tab
• The default spacing will appear in the ‘Spacing Before’ field
• User has to click the up arrow next to the ‘Spacing Before’ field for increasing the space before the paragraph
• User has to click the up arrow next to the ‘Spacing After’ field for increasing the amount of space after the paragraph

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While you might have experience changing the formatting for your Word documents to meet the requirements for your school or job, you might encounter a situation where you need to use different settings.

Microsoft Word is full of different tools and menus that let you customize your document, and line spacing is something that you can adjust.

Our tutorial below will show you how to single space in Word, even if you have already written and edited the entire document.

How to Make a Word Single Space Document

1. Open the document.
2. Click inside the document and press Ctrl + A to select everything.
3. Select the Home tab at the top of the window.
4. Click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button.
5. Choose the 1.0 option.

Our guide continues below with additional information on how to make a document single space instead of double space in Microsoft Word, including pictures of these steps.

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Document spacing can impact several things, including the number of pages in the document. Microsoft Word includes several different options from which you can select to control the amount of space between the lines in your document.

Many schools and organizations have their own rules and preferences when it comes to the amount of line spacing that you have in your documents. Often they want you to use double spacing, but it’s entirely possible that they might want single spacing to reduce the number of pages in documents.

A document in Microsoft Word can have a lot of different formatting options, including the amount of space between lines.

If your current document is double spaced, or if it appears to have more or less spacing than the single spacing you need, you may be looking for a way to adjust that.

You can make a Microsoft Word single space document by opening the document, selecting all of the text, choosing the Home tab, clicking the Line and Paragraph Spacing button, then choosing the 1.0 option from the drop down menu.

Our guide below will show you how to single space in Word by selecting all of the text in the document and adjusting the line spacing setting.

You can also check out our tutorial on how to select all in Word if you would like to know more about using that option.

How to Use Single Spacing in Word for Office 365 (Guide with Pictures)

The steps in this article were performed in the Microsoft Word for Office 365 version of the application but will work in most other versions as well.

Step 1: Open your document in Microsoft Word.

Step 2: Click inside the document, then press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to select everything.

If this is a new, blank document, you can skip this step.

Step 3: Select the Home tab at the top of the window.

Step 4: Click the Line & Paragraph Spacing button in the Paragraph section of the ribbon.

Step 5: Choose the 1.0 option from the dropdown menu to switch the document to single spacing.

Note that there is a Line Spacing Options button at the bottom of that dropdown menu.

If you select that option, you will be able to customize your document spacing further and set a new default spacing option if you would like.

Our tutorial continues below with additional discussion about how to make a document single spaced in Word.

You can also read our article on how to double space in Word for additional information about Microsoft Word line spacing.

How to Change Default Line Spacing in Microsoft Word

While you can change line spacing in every document that you create or edit in Microsoft Word, you might not want to adjust spacing every time.

But if your Word Normal template is defaulting to double spacing and you need to have single spacing more often, then constantly switching the line spaces can not only be tedious, it can be something that you forget to do.

Fortunately, among all of the different formatting adjustments that you can make for your document, there is a way to set the default line spacing.

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Select the Home tab.
3. Click Line and Paragraph Spacing.
4. Choose Line Spacing Options.
5. Click the Line spacing drop down.
6. Select your default line spacing preference.
7. Click Set as Default.
8. Choose All documents based on the Normal template.
9. Click OK.

Now any new documents that you create in Microsoft Word that use the Normal template will have the line spacing that you just chose.

this will not affect the line spacing in any of your existing documents.

More Information on How to Apply Single Line Spacing in Word

While we have focused on changing the line spacing setting in an MS Word document, for the entire document, you can also format a document so that only some of it is single spaced.

Rather than selecting the whole document, simply use your mouse to select the part of the document for which you want to change the spacing, then follow the steps above to apply a new line spacing setting to that selection.

Another thing that you can adjust that relates to line spacing is the paragraph space setting. This affects the amount of line spacing that appears before and after your paragraphs.

You can find the paragraph spacing settings by clicking the Home tab, then clicking the small Paragraph Settings button at the bottom-right corner of the Paragraph group in the ribbon. This will open the Paragraph dialog box.

There you can select line spacing options in the “Spacing” section so that you can choose the amount of space before and after a paragraph, as well as determine the line spacing type.

Frequently Asked Questions About How to Make a Document Single Spaced in Word

As a general rule, in English there is no space before and one space after a punctuation mark. Exceptions follow.

Period

No space before or after a decimal period between numerals:

• 10.6 million Canadians
• $7.45

A space before and none after a decimal period not preceded by a numeral:

• a .22 calibre rifle

A space after a period following a person’s initial:

• W. S. Avis

No space before or after a period in multiple numeration:

• subsection 2.5.12

No space before or after a period that is followed by a comma or a closing quotation mark, parenthesis or bracket:

• John Fraser Jr., Ellen Putniak and George Zeller were nominated.
• (See Chapter 21.)

No space before the periods following the capital letters in the official abbreviations of provinces and territories, and no space after such periods except the last one:

• P.E.I.
• Y.T.

Ellipsis points

A space before, between and after ellipsis points:

• There was little he could say . . . so he said nothing.

Note: There is an alternative format for the ellipsis. It requires no spaces between the ellipsis points (…). However, a space is inserted before and after the ellipsis when it is used between two words (“Interviews … have”), between a comma and a word (“In fact, … we have”), or between end punctuation and the beginning of a new sentence (“fell drastically. … But”).

Question mark and exclamation mark

No space before or after a question or exclamation mark that is followed by a closing quotation mark, parenthesis or bracket:

• The delegate added, «Is it not high time we tightened our belts and dealt with the deficit?»

Comma

No space before or after a comma that is followed by a closing quotation mark:

• «Stop procrastinating,» she said.
• The terms «interfacing,» «conferencing» and «downsizing» are now part of the language of business.

No space before or after a comma used to separate triads in numbers (see Note 2 in 5.09 Decimal fractions):

• $12,670,233

Colon

No space before or after a colon used to express ratios or the time of day in the 24-hour system, or to separate chapter and verse, volume and page, act and scene in references to books, plays, etc.:

• a slope of 1:4
• We arrived at 15:30
• Psalms 39:5

Parentheses and brackets

One space before and none after an opening parenthesis or bracket within a sentence; no space before or after a closing parenthesis or bracket that is followed by a punctuation mark:

• Please read the enclosed booklet (Using Your Modem); it will help you take full advantage of your new communication tool.

No space before or between parentheses enclosing subsections, paragraphs, subparagraphs, etc., in citations from legislation:

• subparagraph 123(4)(b)(ii)

Em dash, en dash and hyphen

No space before or after these marks when they are inserted between words, a word and a numeral, or two numerals:

• I will support you in any way I can—even to the point of silence.
  —Eugene Forsey
• a few 90-cent stamps
• pp. 134–200

Oblique

No space before or after an oblique used between individual words, letters or symbols; one space before and after the oblique when one or both of the items it separates contain internal spacing:

• n/a
• thesaurus / collocation dictionary
• Language and Society / Langue et société

Apostrophe

No space before or after an apostrophe within a word.

One space before and none after an apostrophe used to indicate omitted figures in dates:

• the committee’s report
• the employees’ suggestions
• the class of ’79

Quotation marks

One space before and none after an opening quotation mark within a sentence; no space before or after a closing quotation mark that is followed by a punctuation mark:

• The Minister spoke of «a full and frank discussion with all parties»; a resolution to the conflict is expected within the week.