Hello, my name is Erin.
This tutorial shows how to adjust paragraph spacing in Word for Mac.
We will begin by changing the spacing before and after individual paragraphs.
Then, we will adjust the space before and after all the paragraphs in a document.
Don't miss the brief discussion at the end about Word's built-in paragraph spacing options
and why you may not want to use them.
These steps don’t affect the line spacing within the paragraphs.
We will cover line spacing in Word for Mac in a separate tutorial.
Today I’ll be using Word for Microsoft 365 for Mac.
These steps also apply to the one-time-purchase versions of the software
back to Word 2016 for Mac.
If you’re on a PC, please see this tutorial's companion video
“How to Adjust Paragraph Spacing in Microsoft Word,” which is linked below.
To adjust the space before or after individual paragraphs, begin by selecting the Home tab.
From there, I suggest selecting the Show/Hide button to reveal your formatting marks, including paragraph marks.
Next, select the paragraph or paragraphs you want to adjust.
And then select the Line and Paragraph Spacing button.
Followed by Line Spacing Options from the drop-down menu.
When the Paragraph dialog box appears, enter an amount into the Before or After text box.
Avoid entering numbers in the Before and After text boxes at the same time
because multiple adjustments may cause unwanted results.
Next, ensure that Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style is not selected.
When you are finished, select the OK button.
The spacing should be adjusted for the paragraphs you selected.
If you selected the Show/Hide button earlier,
you can now reselect it to re-hide your formatting marks.
Now we’re going to adjust the paragraph spacing for the entire document without affecting heading spacing.
To begin, place your cursor inside one of your paragraphs.
Then, select the Home tab.
And from there select the Styles Pane button.
When the Styles Pane appears, your paragraph style will be automatically selected.
This style will usually be “Normal” unless you have created a custom style.
Next, select the Select All button.
Your paragraphs should be selected, but your headings should not be selected.
Now, select the Line and Paragraph Spacing button.
And then select Line Spacing Options from the drop-down menu.
Once again, enter an amount into the Before or After text box in the Paragraph dialog box.
As mentioned earlier, avoid entering numbers in the Before and After text boxes at the same time
because multiple adjustments can cause unwanted results.
Next, ensure that "Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style" is not selected.
And then select the OK button.
The spacing should be adjusted for all the paragraphs in the document.
And the heading spacing should not be affected.
If you are finished working with styles, you can select the X to close the Styles Pane.
If you select the Design tab,
you will notice that the Paragraph Spacing menu includes six built-in options.
You can use these options instead of custom paragraph spacing.
However, you may not want to do so because these options will also adjust the line spacing within your paragraphs.
Regardless of how you choose to adjust your paragraph spacing, remember to save your file to save your changes.
I have a growing collection of tutorials about Word for Mac including
“How to Create a Custom Heading Style in Word for Mac.”
And, “How to Adjust the Space between Words in Word for Mac.”
Please see the complete list in the playlist titled “How to Use Word for Mac” which is linked in the description box below.
All the steps we just performed are listed with images on erinwrightwriting.com,
along with all my other writing-related software tutorials to help you succeed at work and in the classroom.
Feel free to leave me a comment if there’s a specific topic
that you would like me to talk about in the future.
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Thank you so much for watching!
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