Here's how to change the default settings. On the Home tab, click Line and Paragraph Spacing. Word for mac recolor photo. Click Line Spacing Options at the bottom of the menu, and then select the options you want in the Paragraph dialog box under Spacing. How to Style and Format Paragraphs in Word 2016 In addition to formatting text, you can also format your paragraphs in Word 2016. For example, you can set line spacing, put space between paragraphs, sent indents, and much more.

There are lots of reasons you might want to change the amount of space between lines in a paragraph, or between paragraphs themselves. Word offers some handy preset values to use, but you can also take full control by specifying exact spacing. Changing the line or paragraph spacing in a document is not something you might need to do very often.

But as anyone who’s had to turn in a paper with mandatory double spacing knows, it can be the difference between passing and failing. Outside of college, you still might be faced with line spacing guidelines by employers, clients, or publishers. And even in your own documents, the right spacing can make your document more readable or highlight parts of the documents on which you want your readers to focus.

If the default spacing in Word doesn’t quite hit the spot for you, Word makes it easy to change. What is Line and Paragraph Spacing? They are both pretty much what they sound like.

Line spacing is the amount of white space between two lines of text. Paragraph spacing is the amount of white space between two paragraphs. And like using the right font or proper margins, controlling spacing is an important part of document formatting.

RELATED: And weird as it might sound at first, both line and paragraph spacing are applied at the paragraph level. Line spacing controls how all lines of a paragraph are spaced. Paragraph spacing controls how much space comes before and after the paragraph. In Word, line spacing is most commonly measured in multiples of whatever font size the paragraph is using. For example, say you’re using a 12 point font for the text in your paragraph. If you choose single line spacing, the space between lines will be 12 points.

If you choose double spacing, that space between lines will be 24 points. However, if you want to fine tune things, you can also specify an exact point size to use.

Paragraphs work a bit differently. By default, Word adds eight points of space after a paragraph and no additional space before the paragraph, and you can change both of those values however you like. Let’s take a closer look at how to do all this. Use Quick Presets for Easy Changes Word has some common preset options for you to choose from. Remember that line and paragraph spacing are both applied at the paragraph level.

If you place your insertion point in a paragraph, you’ll change things for that paragraph. If you select text from multiple paragraphs, you’ll change things for all those paragraphs. Select all of the paragraphs you want to change (or place your insertion point anywhere in a single paragraph you want to change).

On the Home tab, click the “Line and Paragraph Spacing” button. This opens a dropdown menu with presets for line spacing (at the top) and paragraph spacing (at the bottom).

The line spacing is shown in multiples. “2.0” is double spacing, “3.0” is triple spacing, and so on. Select the multiple you want, and Word applies it to the selected paragraphs. If you want to choose another spacing, or revert to the original spacing, click the “Line and Paragraph Spacing” option again and select a different multiple. The paragraph spacing only lets you add or remove a preset spacing before the paragraph or after the paragraph. And it’s kind of weird the way it works.

If you currently have no spacing before or after a paragraph, the menu shows commands for adding spacing in both locations (as shown in the previous image). If you add a space in one location, that command changes to let you remove that spacing. So, you can only ever add or remove one level of preset spacing with the menu commands. And what are those presets? 12 points for the spacing before the paragraph and 8 points for the spacing after. These presets work well enough for simple changes to a few paragraphs.