While double spacing between two lines is usually required for submitting an essay, article or a scientific research paper, double spacing between every sentence or paragraph in a Microsoft Word Document is the result of a typing convention or habit and not driven by any academic submission requirement.
Hence, any academic, legal or business related Document that has double spacing between sentences or paragraphs can appear as lacking in professionalism and needs to be corrected by removing the double spacing.
Related: How to Make One Page Landscape in Word Document.
Remove Double Spaces in Word Document
If you are dealing with a document that has double spacing between every or certain paragraphs, it can easily converted into a document with regular spacing by using “Paragraph spacing” feature as available in Microsoft Word.
In the case of double-spacing between sentences, you can make use of “Search & Replace” function to remove this type of double-spacing in a Microsoft Word Document.
1. Remove Double Spacing Between Paragraphs
You can follow the steps below to remove double spacing between paragraphs in a Microsoft Word document.
1. Open the Word Document that has double-spacing between the paragraphs.
2. Once the document is open, switch to Design tab and locate Paragraph Spacing option.
3. Next, click Paragraph Spacing and select No Paragraph Space option in the drop-down menu.
Once you click on No Paragraph space, it will override the current double spaced setting for the document and switch it back to the default (single space) setting.
2. Remove Double Spacing Between Sentences
As mentioned above, double spacing between sentences in a Word Document can be removed by using the “Search & Replace” function as available in Microsoft Word.
1. Open the Microsoft Word Document that has double spaces between sentences.
2. Select a portion of the Document and click on the Replace option as available in the Home menu.
3. On the “Find and Replace” window that appears, insert two spaces in “Find What” box, and insert one space in “Replace With” box.
Note: You can also press CTRL + H to bring up the “Find and Replace” dialogue box
4. After typing or inserting the Find and Replace items, click on Replace All button to replace all instances of double spaces with single space in the selected portion of the Word document.
5. You will see a pop-up, informing you about the number of replacement done. Click on OK to close the pop-up.
Similarly, you can select remaining portions of the document and repeat the above steps to replace double spaces between sentences or words with a single space.
Note: If you do not select any portion of the document and use Search & Replace, Microsoft Word will search the entire document for double spaces and replace them with single space.
However, the disadvantage of allowing “Search and Replace” to work on the whole document is that Microsoft Word will replace all instances of double spaces, including tab spaces. For this reason, it is safer to perform the “Search and Replace” procedure on selected sections of the Word Document.