How to Double Space in Word? 4 Easy Ways
(Note: This guide on how to double space in Word is suitable for all MS Word versions including Office 365)
There are a lot of ways in Microsoft Word (MS Word) to improve the readability scale. One such way to improve the readability of the text is to use double spacing in Word.
Double spacing increases the space between the lines of texts. If you are a teacher or an editor you might have to write or read through a large amount of text. It would be a little hard to read through the text efficiently when they are crammed together.
In such cases, it would be easier to skim and get the whole picture of the context or leave comments and suggestions when there is a little distance between the text.
In this article, I will show you how to double space in Word to improve the readability using 4 easy methods.
You’ll Learn:
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4 Easy Ways To Double Space in Word
1. From Design Dropdown
- Open the word document you want to apply double spacing.
- Navigate to Design in the main menu. Under Document Formatting, click on the dropdown in Paragraph Spacing. Select Double from the drop-down.
This formats the whole document with double spaces in between the lines and paragraphs.
One drawback of this method is that you can only use it to double-space the whole document. You cannot space any particular text or paragraphs using this method.
Note: The main purpose of double-spacing is to improve the readability of the content. You can also choose any other spacing options (tight, compact, open, or relaxed) from the Paragraph Spacing drop-down based on your preferences.
- Additionally, you can also set the default spacing between the text, line, paragraph, and heading in an extensive manner by clicking on the Custom Paragraph Spacing from the Paragraph Spacing dropdown.
- Under Paragraph Spacing, from the After: dropdown you can select the spacing to Double. Additionally, you can change the font, size, color, alignment, and spacing manually by providing a set value.
Also, when working on multiple documents you don’t have to set the extensive spacing for every single document. Just check the New documents based on this template and the same spacing changes will be applied to all documents.
2. From Line and Paragraph Spacing
There might be instances where you won’t need to double-space the whole document. You might only need to double space a part of the paragraph, or a text to show emphasis or importance to that part.
For such cases, you can double-space any selected text from the paragraph instead of the whole document.
- Select all the text you want to add double-spaces to.
- Now navigate to Home, under Paragraph, click on the Line and Paragraph Spacing
icon - Now, select 2.0.
icon
- The selected text will be formatted with double spacing between the lines.
- For extensive customization of the spacing, click on Line Spacing Options from the Line and Paragraph Spacing dropdown.
- This opens up a dialog box. From the Line Spacing dropdown, click on Double for double line spacing.
There are also other options for spacing, indentations, and page breaks in the Paragraphs dialog box. You can customize them to your desired preferences.
You can see the preview text in the Preview pane below. Additionally, you can apply the same spacing to other word documents too. Just click on Set As Default to set the spacing option to default for other word documents.
Also Read:
Working with Page Breaks in Microsoft Word
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3. From Modify option
Another way to set the double spacing and add customization to spaces is to use the Modify option in Styles. You can set the spacing for both the selected text and the whole document using this option.
- Navigate to Home.
- Under Styles, right-click on any of the styles. In most cases, Normal will be the default style but you can select any style depending on your document.
- Right-click on any of the styles and select Modify.
This opens up a Modify styles dialog box. In the dialog box, select the double-spacing option 
to enable double spacing to the text.
You can also change the before and after paragraph spacings, indentations, and alignment. Also, you can make the changes to the text or apply them as a default spacing for other documents.
4. Using Shortcut Keys
This is the easiest method to add double spaces to the text. You can add double spacing to the text by using shortcut keys.
This works both on the paragraphs and the selected text. If you use the shortcut keys without selecting any text, the space is applied to the paragraph with the cursor.
- Select the text you want to add double spaces.
- Press Ctrl+2. This adds double spaces to the selected text.
Note: You can also add a single space(1) or a space of 1.5 by pressing Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+5 respectively.
Suggested Reads:
The Most Used Microsoft Word Shortcuts – Download
How to Create Hyperlinks in Microsoft Word 2013
Using Settings and Preferences in Microsoft Word 2013
Final Thoughts
Double spacing boosts the readability and presentability of the text in your Word document, especially when the content is extended for multiple pages.
In this article, we saw how to add double space in Word using 4 methods. These methods are similar and you can use the method that is approachable. Use the method that suits you the best.
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Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!
