In the Spacing segment, look for the Line Spacing box and click on it. This means, for example, that if Word finds a place where someone has used five spaces instead of a tab to align text, it will replace some of those double spaces. Click on the down-facing arrow in the bottom right corner, which will pop the Paragraph dialog box. Note that Word will search for all instances of two spaces-not just spaces between sentences. Add spacing between list items Open Microsoft Word You can now either create a very simple bullet list or open an existing document which already contains a. If you want to search only a specific part of a document, go ahead and select that text before you start. If you don’t have any text selected when you start this process, Word will search your entire document for double spaces. double-click when the pointer changes to a 'Show White Space' button.
How to Change Double Spaces to Single Spaces For the online form to fit entirely in the Word window, you collapse the ribbon. However, if you do find yourself working on a document where someone has used two spaces after periods and you want there to be only one, it’s quick and easy to change them all in Word. We’re not here to tell you which you should prefer. See How do I give feedback on Microsoft Office? for more information.In the end, it’s all about your preference on personal documents, or the agreed-upon house style if you’re writing or editing documents for a school, business, or publisher. The keyboard shortcut to double space in Word is Ctrl+2. Help us improve Wordĭo you have suggestions about how we can improve Word? Let us know by providing us feedback. Adding the round brackets saves the found character for use as ‘\1. ( 0-9A-z) fullstop/period, space then ( 0-9A-z) The wildcard 0-9A-z finds any digit or letter. We need to turn to advanced Find/Replace with ‘Use Wildcards’ ON.
Doing so overrides the line spacing settings of whatever style set you are currently using. Once you do, the entire document will have double spacing between every line. In the context menu that appears, click on Double. Post a question in the Word Answers Community. Searching for ‘period then space’ will find both single and double spaced sentences. Open the Word document you want to have double spacing between lines in. Using Styles in Word - a free, 10-minute video training course.Īlign text left or right, center text, or justify text on a pageĭo you have a question about Word that we didn't answer here? The Line spacing drop-down lets you select or set more specific line spacing.įor more information on modifying styles in Word, see: Customize styles in Word. 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. Choose the spacing you want to apply and click OK. Near the center of the dialog box you'll find the line spacing buttons that let you select single, 1.5x or double spaced. Right-click the style you want to change and select Modify. 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.įind the style you're using in the Styles gallery on the Home tab. This will make Word enforce the use of two spaces and mark a single space after a. Scroll down to the Punctuation Conventions section, change the Spaces Between Sentences to Two Spaces, and then click the OK button. Percentages below 100 percent compress the text. To change the setting, open any Word document and click File > Options.
Tip: If you dont see the option you need.
This has to be done in each document unless you adjust your default settings. Select 'Remove Extra Space' to remove the extra space. Click on the Line and Paragraph Spacing icon in the Home Ribbon. Percentages above 100 percent stretch the text. Remove the Default Space Between Paragraphs: Set your cursor to the location of the paragraph spacing. In the Scale box, enter the percentage that you want. Note: If you're using Word 2007 the tab is called Character Spacing.