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Jan's Working with Words

    Formatting: Spaces

The spaces around your text and images are very important to your document. Crowded lines are hard to read. Open space can draw the eye to the important parts of your text. Colors and borders can make important parts stand out from the crowd.

In this lesson you will learn to format the spaces around lines and paragraphs.

A line of text fits in one width of the text area on the page. A line can be blank or have any number of words, as long as they fit in the width.

A paragraph wraps to the page and ends with a paragraph mark Paragraph mark. A paragraph can be just one word or several sentences. A paragraph can take one or many lines. This is not your English teacher's definition!

In your flyer, the title and subtitle are paragraphs. Each is just a few words, not even a sentence, and fits on a single line. The sentence that starts "In honor of our 10th ..." is a paragraph made up of complete sentences and takes 3 lines.

Flyer after Formatting Words (Word 2007) Flyer after formatting spaces (Word 2010)

Flyer before and after this lesson

Spaces Around Lines of Text

Around your text is a small amount of white space that varies depending on which font and which font size you are using. More white space can be created by changing the line spacing and/or the space before and after a paragraph.

Example: Normal single spacing; double spacing; reduced spacing

Normal Line Spacing includes:

  • Space for tall letters like t and l and capital letters like B and W
  • Space for letters that hang below the line like y and p
  • Space between lines to keep the text from overlapping or feeling crowded

Dialog: Paragraph - Spacing (Word 2010)Button: Line Spacing - list dropped (Word 2010)Change Spacing

You can change the line spacing with the Line Spacing button Button: Line Spacing (Word 2010) in the Paragraph group in the Home tab. Drop the list to see common choices. The list also has commands at the bottom to add or remove 10 or 12 pts. of space before or after the paragraph, but just once.

The Paragraph Dialog lets you set all of these and more. You can add even more space or set other values for line spacing.

You can open the Paragraph dialog using the Dialog Box Launcher button in the Paragraph group in the Home tab.

The Preview in the dialog shows your current paragraph in between two sample paragraphs so you can see the effect of your changes.

Which Spacing Does What?

Line Spacing: Affects three kinds of space -

  • for text
  • between lines of a paragraph
  • after the paragraph (but not before)

Example: Space After a paragraphBefore and After: You can add more space before a paragraph or after it. This is often done for titles and heading styles.

Between Paragraphs: There are three different values that could affect the space between two paragraphs -

  • 1st paragraph: Space After
  • 1st paragraph: Line Spacing
  • 2nd paragraph: Space Before

The spacing you see is the largest of these three. Unexpected and confusing! These spaces overlap instead of adding up.

Icon: TipEditing Spacing between Paragraphs: Use the Paragraph dialog or Spacing controls on the Page Layout tab to see the values for Space After or Space Before for both paragraphs before you start making changes. Remember that the larger amount is in charge of the spacing. If you guess but guess wrong, you can sometimes change and change and change without seeing any changes in the document! Very confusing and frustrating!

Examples:

Dialog: Paragraph - preview with Space After = 0, single spaced (Word 2010)Dialog: Paragraph - preview, Space After = 6, single (Word 2010)Dialog: Paragraph - Preview: Space Before = 24, Space After = 12, Double spaced (Word 2010)

Icon Step-by-Step 

Step-by-Step: Format Spaces

  Icon Step-by-Step
What you will learn: to add shading
to add borders
to change line spacing
to adjust Space Before/Space After

Start with:Icon: Class storage device, flyer-World Travel Inc-Lastname-Firstname.docx as finished in the last lesson

Shading: Gallery

Example of contrast with shading and text colorShading, also called Fill, is a colored or patterned background. Pictures and text are on top of the color or pattern.

TipDesign tip: Colors
When you choose a dark color for shading, select a pale color for the text. Text is easier to read when there is good contrast between text color and background color.

Example of gray scale version of shading with colored textTipDesign tip: Printing
Think about how the combination of shading color and text color will print in black/white or gray scale. Some colors will turn into the same shade of gray. You can wind up with invisible text!

Let's create a colored background for the bulleted list.

  1. If necessary, select the lines listing the trips by dragging down the margin.
  2. Button: Shading - gallery open - White, 15% (Word 2010)On the Home tab in the Paragraph group, click on the down arrow at the right of the Shading button Button: Shading - none (Word 2010).
    A gallery of colors opens.
  3. Icon: Experiment Experiment: Shading Colors
    Hover     over various colors to let Live Preview show the effect. Some backgrounds don't work so well with the red text!

  4. Click in the first column of colors on White, Background 1, Darker 15%.

    Document with shading applied to tripsThe gray shading is applied to the background of the selected paragraphs, all the way across the page between the margins. The other shading that you see is for being selected.

    Weird name for a color! Word uses descriptions of choices in its galleries. It makes it easier to figure out which color you want. When colors are named, it can be hard to figure out whether 'Haze' is lighter or darker than 'Smoke'.

  5. Icon: Class storage device Save.
    [flyer-World Travel Inc-Lastname-Firstname.docx]

Borders: Menu

A border is a line around something. The versions of Word since Word 97 can put a line around just about anything!

The Borders button changes its icon to show the most recent choice. If you select some other text and click the button, the border style on the button will be applied.

  1. Button: Borders - gallery - Outside Borders (Word 2010)While the lines about trips are still selected, on the Home tab in the Paragraph group, click on the down arrow at the right of the Borders button Button: Borders - none (Word 2010).
    A vertical gallery of choices for borders drops down.
  2. Icon: Experiment Experiment: Borders List Combinations
    Hover     over various choices in the list. There is no Live Preview in versions before Word 2016! Unexpected! Apparently this list is a menu instead of a gallery in those versions.
    You can combine these choices in some interesting ways.
    • Click on the first border in the list, Bottom Border.
      The list closes and applies the border.
      The Border button shows the icon for Bottom Border now.
    • Click on the second border, Top Border.
      The top border is applied, and the bottom border is still there.
      The Border button now shows the icon for Top Border.
    • Click on the Border button again.
      The top border is removed. Did you expect that?? I didn't!
      Borders are additive and subtractive. If there is already a border there, clicking that choice again takes it away.
    • Try various combinations. Can you now predict what will happen?
       
      When you are ready to continue...

  3. Document with border around shaded areaChoose No Borders to clear any borders left over, and then Outside Borders.
    A thin line appears all the way around the shaded area.

    The illustration shows the text as selected after the background color and border have been applied.

    Document with border around shaded area (Word 2013) In Word 2013 and 2016 the highlighting for selected text is gray.

  4. Icon: Class storage device Save.
    [flyer-World Travel Inc-Lastname-Firstname.docx]


Borders: Dialog

You have control of all the features of your borders in the Borders dialog.

  1. Dialog: Border and Shading (Word 2010)With the three lines listing trips still selected, in the Borders menu, click at the bottom on Borders and Shading...
    The Borders and Shading dialog appears.

    There are several sections to the Borders tab.

    • Setting - The type of border: none, a simple box, a shadowed box, a 3-D box, or create your own Custom border.
    • Style for the line - solid, dotted, dashed, double
    • Color for the line
    • Width of the line
    • Preview of the effect of your choices. You can click directly on the preview to set which sides have a line.
    • Apply To text box lets your choose to apply to the whole paragraph or to selected text.
  2. Dialog: Borders & Shading - settings for flyer (Word 2010)Icon: Experiment Experiment: Borders Dialog
    Try out various combinations of settings.
    • Click on the borders in the preview. Turn borders on and off. 
    • Change the type of line and its width and color.

      Watch how the buttons in the preview get highlighted when that border is on. Have a good time!
       
      When you are finished...
  3. Click on the setting Box.
  4. Select the solid line Style.
  5. Select Color as Automatic
  6. Select line Width of 2¼ pt.
  7. Select Apply to: Paragraph.

    TipBorder Options button: Under Options you can change how far from the border the text is. The default is 1 pt. top and bottom and 4 pt. left and right.

  8. Flyer after adding shading and bordersIcon: Class storage device Save.
    [flyer-World Travel Inc-Lastname-Firstname.docx]

Line Spacing: Button on Ribbon

You can manage the white space in your document more exactly than by just adding blank lines. That's the old way required for documents typed on a typewriter!

You actually need only one of the blank lines in the flyer. Let's get rid of the rest and adjust the spacing with Line Spacing and Space Before and Space After.

Normal line spacing is 1.0. Double spacing is 2.0. Triple spacing is 3.0.

  1. Flyer after deleting blank linesDelete all of the blank lines except one of the ones below the title.
    (Hint: Select the line with its paragraph mark and press the DELETE key.)
  2. Click anywhere in the subtitle, Anniversary Specials.
  3. Click the arrow beside the Line Spacing button to open the list.
  4. Icon: Experiment Experiment: Line Spacing for a heading
    Hover over each of the choices for line spacing.
    Live Preview shows the effect in the document.
    Changing the spacing for the subtitle line changes the space after the subtitle but not the space before the subtitle.
  5. Button: Line Spacing - making subtitle double-spaced (Word 2010)Click on 2.0 to create double-spacing.
  6. Flyer after changing line spacing (Word 2010)Select all three lines in the bullet list.
  7. Change the line spacing to 1.5 using the Line Spacing drop list.
  8. Icon: Class storage device Save.
    [flyer-World Travel Inc-Lastname-Firstname.docx]

Spacing: Paragraph Dialog

  1. Click anywhere in the paragraph, that starts "In honor of..."
  2. Icon: Experiment Experiment: Line Spacing for paragraphs
    Open the list from the Line Spacing button Button: Line Spacing (Word 2010) again and hover over each choice but do not click on any of them yet.
    Live Preview shows the effect of each one.
    Some of these choices add a LOT of space!

    The last item in the list is now Remove Space After Paragraph instead of Add Space. Why?? Apparently the formatting already included some space after. Let's find out how much!

  3. Click off the list to close it.

  4. On the Home tab in the Paragraph group, click on the Dialog Box Launcher button Button: Dialog Launcher (Word 2010).
    The Paragraph dialog opens.

    This paragraph already has extra white space after it and its line spacing is NOT 1.0.

    Icon: Word 2007 Icon: Word 2010 Word 2007, 2010: 10 pt. space after and 1.15 line spacing

    Dialog: Paragraph - Space After 10 pt, Line Spacing: Multiple 1.15 (Word 2010)

    Icon: Word 2013 Icon: Word 2016 Word 2013, 2016: 8 pt. space after and 1.08 line spacing.

    Dialog: Paragraph - Space after = 8pts; Line spacing = 1.15 (Word 2016)

    The values come from the paragraph style in the template, which is why different versions of Word have different values.

    Look at the Preview at the bottom of the dialog. Your text is showing there in between two example paragraphs with standard formatting. Can you see the differences in the preview?

  5. Click the up arrow at the right of the After: box to increase the value. Watch as the preview changes.
  6. Dialog: Paragraph > Spacing = Multiple at 1.15 (Word 2013) Repeat until the size is 24 pt.
  7. If necessary, set the Line Spacing to Multiple and then type in the At: box the value 1.15.
  8. Click on OK.
    The dialog closes and the space is added in the document.
  9. Flyer after adding space after paragraph (Word 2010)Icon: Class storage device Save.
    [flyer-World Travel Inc-Lastname-Firstname.docx]