Tutorial: How to double-space text in Word documents

Disclaimers:

1. This tutorial focuses only on Microsoft Word 2007 for Windows, because this is the version used on
the IU Kokomo campus and available to students, faculty, and staff through IUware. Because of the
different user interface between Office 2007 and older Office products, the procedure to accomplish
similar tasks in older products will be somewhat different.
2. This tutorial does not provide a procedure focused on Microsoft Word 2008 for Macintosh or earlier
versions of Word for Macintosh.

Word wrapping – Most all modern word processing applications incorporate a feature called “word
wrapping”. Word wrapping allows for typing text into a document without having to press the Enter key
at the end of each line, as we did when using a typewriter. Simply keep typing sentence after sentence
until the end of the paragraph, then press the Enter key. Only press the Enter key at the end of the
paragraph. When normally typing text into a document, do not press the enter key at the end of each
line, only at the end of each paragraph. Similarly, do not try to create double-spaced text by pressing
the enter key twice at the end of each line of text. Type the text and let it flow into the document as
you type.

Paragraphs – When entering text into a word processing application, the Enter key should only be
pressed at the end of each paragraph. Pressing the Enter key separates one paragraph from another.
To look at a document and view where the Enter key has been pressed, click the “Show/Hide ¶” button
on the Home tab. This will display the “¶” symbol at each place in the document where the Enter key
was pressed. Your document should look similar to that shown below. Notice that the “¶” symbols are
only at the end of paragraphs, and not at the end of each line. In this example, the four lines and the
title of the paper are actually paragraphs, even though they are less than one line long. This is because
the Enter key was [correctly] pressed at the end of each of those lines. In the body of the document,
notice that the “¶” symbol only occurs [correctly] at the end of each of the three paragraphs. The small
dots between words are created each time you press the space bar. This is the way your document
should appear when you display the “¶” symbols by clicking the “Show/Hide ¶” button.

If you see the “¶” symbols at the end of each line of text in the body of the document, you have
[incorrectly] pressed the Enter key at the end of each line – this should be corrected. If it is not
corrected and the margins are reset to new settings, the document will immediately become a
formatting disaster.

Note: The “¶” symbols and the dots between words that appear when the “Show/Hide ¶” button is
pressed never appear on printed documents.

To turn off the “¶” symbols, click the “Show/Hide ¶” button again.

CSER “How to” Tutorial – Double-spacing text in Word 2008 Page 1 of 5 September 21, 2009
Indiana University Kokomo Revision 1
Author: Gregory M. Ogle, Coordinator of IT Training and Consulting Services
Filename: CSER How to – How to double-space text in Word 2007_r1.docx
Tutorial: How to double-space text in Word documents

“Show/Hide ¶” button

Also notice that there appears to be an extra line between each of the paragraphs. In its default
settings, Word 2007 automatically adds “white space”, or separation, either before or after a paragraph
for readability. This extra “white space” should be removed before double-spacing is applied.

In this tutorial, the extra “white space” is removed and double-spacing is applied in one operation. To
apply these effects, follow this procedure:

1. Select the entire document by holding down the Control key and pressing the ‘A’ key. This will
select the entire document.

CSER “How to” Tutorial – Double-spacing text in Word 2008 Page 2 of 5 September 21, 2009
Indiana University Kokomo Revision 1
Author: Gregory M. Ogle, Coordinator of IT Training and Consulting Services
Filename: CSER How to – How to double-space text in Word 2007_r1.docx
Tutorial: How to double-space text in Word documents

1 2 Click the dialog launcher

button in the Paragraph
group to display the
Paragraph dialog box

2. Click the Home tab. Then, in the Paragraph group, click the dialog launcher button to display
the Paragraph dialog box.

CSER “How to” Tutorial – Double-spacing text in Word 2008 Page 3 of 5 September 21, 2009
Indiana University Kokomo Revision 1
Author: Gregory M. Ogle, Coordinator of IT Training and Consulting Services
Filename: CSER How to – How to double-space text in Word 2007_r1.docx
Tutorial: How to double-space text in Word documents

Set “Spacing before” and

3
“Spacing after” to 0pt.

Set “Line
spacing” to 4
“Double”.
5

3. Then, in the Paragraph dialog box, first set the “Spacing before” and the “Spacing after” settings
to 0pt.
4. Then, set “Line spacing” to Double.
5. Click the OK button to apply the changes.
6. Click anywhere in the document to deselect the text.

The document is now correctly double-spaced and should now look like this:

CSER “How to” Tutorial – Double-spacing text in Word 2008 Page 4 of 5 September 21, 2009
Indiana University Kokomo Revision 1
Author: Gregory M. Ogle, Coordinator of IT Training and Consulting Services
Filename: CSER How to – How to double-space text in Word 2007_r1.docx
Tutorial: How to double-space text in Word documents

Double-spacing can be turned as the document is created and before the text is entered, or double-
spacing can be applied after the text is entered into the document. Either way is acceptable. It may also
be that the document will contain both double-spaced text and single-spaced text within the same
document.

CSER “How to” Tutorial – Double-spacing text in Word 2008 Page 5 of 5 September 21, 2009
Indiana University Kokomo Revision 1
Author: Gregory M. Ogle, Coordinator of IT Training and Consulting Services
Filename: CSER How to – How to double-space text in Word 2007_r1.docx