How to adjust and change line spacing in Microsoft Word

You have a document that's single spaced and want it to be double-spaced. Or you've been hitting the Enter key after every line to make it more than single space. As an experienced software trainer, I'll show you how you can quickly and pretty easily change your line spacing.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Microsoft Word
• A MS Word file opened and on your screen. Doesn't have to be the one you want to change, but that would be better.

1. Have the document whose line spacing you want to adjust opened-up and on your screen.
2. Select/highlight all the lines you want to change.
   
   For instance, if you want to change the first 3 paragraphs only, then you'd select just those ones.
   
   If you want to adjust the whole document, then you can select all the text quickly by:
   
   1) Pressing and holding the CONTROL key
   2) Pressing the letter A key.
   
   Or if you prefer, you can click the EDIT menu and choose the option that says SELECT ALL.
3. While the text is still selected/highlighted:
   
   1) Click on the FORMAT menu
   2) Choose the PARAGRAPH option
   
   This will bring up a popup menu with your various line spacing options.
4. Towards the bottom-right of that popup menu, you'll see a section called LINE SPACING. This is where you'll choose how much space you want in between things.
   
   Click the DOWN arrow right underneath LINE SPACING. This will give you all the different line spacing options from which to choose.
   
   1) SINGLE means single-space
   2) 1.5 LINES means space and a half. It's in-between single and double-spacing.
   2) DOUBLE means double-space
5. Once you've made your selection regarding your line spacing, right below that, you'll see a big white box that's labeled PREVIEW. This shows you what your text will look like after you click OK.
6. Once you've got your line spacing chosen, just click OK at the very bottom and your document will be adjusted. That's it!
7. If you want to readjust your spacing to something else, just repeat steps 2 to 6.
   
   If you're completely done, just click your mouse anywhere to turn off the highlighting and you're finished.
   
   Now that wasn't so tough was it?

Tips & Warnings

• If you have an actual document you want to change, it's best to have that one opened on your screen. That way, you won't have to repeat things again.
• But if you want to practice first, then you can either open up something else to "play with," or create a new document and use that one.
• When your text is highlighted/selected, do NOT hit delete! This will erase things. So just leave it alone once it's highlighted.
• If you did accidentially erase what was highlighted, then undo it right away.