Are you having trouble spacing your words correctly in Microsoft Word? Don’t worry; you’re not alone! This tutorial will show you how to fix the spacing between words in Microsoft Word.
First, check what is causing the gap. The Font settings below change spacing between characters, including letters within words. For repeated spaces, use the Find and Replace method further down. If a paragraph is justified, Word adds space between words to align both margins; choose Home > Paragraph > Align Left (Ctrl+L on Windows) if you do not want that effect. Here are the exact steps you need to follow:
Contents
Step 1: Select The Portion You Want To Fix
Open your document in Microsoft Word. Next, select the entire document by pressing CTRL + A on your keyboard. You can also select a portion of the text in the document by holding down the left mouse button and dragging your cursor over the text.
Step 2: Go To The Advanced Font Section From The Home Tab
Expand the Font section on the Home tab by tapping the small arrow in the bottom-right corner. Then go to “Advanced” and locate the “Spacing” drop-down menu.
Step 3: Choose Your Desired Spacing Option
Under the “Character Spacing” portion, you will find a “Spacing” drop-down menu. Click on it and select your desired spacing option. These are the options you can choose from:
– Normal (this is the default spacing between characters)
– Expanded
– Condensed
For a specific adjustment, choose Expanded or Condensed and enter the amount in the “By” box beside it. There is no separate Custom spacing option. Choose Normal to remove an expanded or condensed character-spacing setting.
Step 4: Save Changes
Once you’ve selected the desired spacing option, close the expanded font section by tapping the “Ok” in the bottom-right corner. Your selected text should now have the preferred character spacing. Save the document to keep the changes.
Experiment with different character spacing options until you find one that you like. The Normal option usually works best, but feel free to try other options.
How to Fix Unwanted Spacing Between Words in Microsoft Word
Now and then, after you copy text from somewhere else and paste it into a Word document, extra spaces show up between the words. This often happens when the text comes from a web page or a PDF, where the original formatting carries over. While this may not be a big deal for short text snippets, it can be quite annoying (and difficult to read) for longer passages. Here is a quick and easy way to fix those pesky spaces.
- Open your Microsoft Word document.
- Under the Home ribbon, press “Replace” (or use the Ctrl+H keyboard shortcut).
- In the “Find what” field, type two ordinary spaces. In the “Replace with” field, type one ordinary space. Keep “Use wildcards” turned off for this simple replacement. Do not search for one space and replace it with nothing, because that joins words together.
- Use “Find Next” and “Replace” to check the first few matches. If they are unwanted double spaces, click “Replace All” to reduce them to single spaces. Repeat if longer runs remain, and check the document before saving. Preserve intentional spaces in aligned text.
Conclusion
Hopefully this walkthrough has made it easy to sort out the spacing between words in your Word document. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below!
