After 200 years of publishing Microsoft Word, they changed the standard line spacing to something odd in Word 2007. Here’s how to change it back.
A reader who recently updated from Word 2003 to Word 2007 wrote me thusly:
The line spacing is so much larger than the old version, I can’t find how to make it smaller. Can you help me?
Why, of course!
In Word 2007 they, meaning Microsoft, reset the default line spacing to 1.15 lines instead of 1 line. They also bumped up the space after each paragraph from 6 points to 10 points. Why? I don’t know. I gave up trying to second-guess Microsoft 25 years ago.
You’re not without hope, however: You can fix anything in Word, and reset the standard to whatever you want. It’s called setting the default, though I abhor the word default.
Here’s what you do:
- On the Home tab, click the dialog box launcher in the lower right corner of the Paragraph group. The Paragraph dialog box appears.
- In the Indents and Spacing tab, change the Line Spacing from Multiple to Single.
- Change the value in the After box from 10 to 6.
- Click the Default button. You’ll see a warning, which you’re free not to read.
- Click the Yes button in the warning dialog box.
It might be necessary to quit and restart Word at this point for the change to take place. Then again, it might not.
The Default button exists in many dialog boxes to help you change the way Word starts up new documents. The default settings are stored in the NORMAL document template, which is what Word uses when you create a new document and don’t specify a template or wizard.
As usual, this information as well as other interesting tidbits, can be found in my book Word For Dummies. Buy several copies.
