I have two documents that have paragraphs with the same exact specifications and line spacing:


- Times New Roman
- 11pt
- Justified
- Single-spaced

One of the documents' lines are very obviously spaced much farther apart than the other's. I'm racking my brain to figure out why.

You can see in the example image that when you highlight the text, the wider one actually has space above and below the line, while the other only has space below the line.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Attached Images

line-spacing-example.png (14.1 KB, 26 views)

I'm not certain, but is single spacing, the same as 'No Spacing' under styles?

Attached Images

NoSpacing.png (21.4 KB, 25 views)

The issue is how you have the spacing "before and after" the text. To see the difference right-click on the line of text and from the resulting menu select "Paragraph". About midway down on the left-hand side note the spacing "before and after". Repeat the process for the other line of text in question. You can fix by correcting the "before and after" spacing to your specifications.

This is really a "styles" issue though. If you are not familiar with styles, here are a couple of links that can help you:

http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm
http://shaunakelly.com/word/styles/tipsonstyles.html

Both of these websites offer much more that what you are asking but, will help you ten-fold for future assistance.

Hope this helps...

ptmuldoon: Not totally sure what you mean. Could you elaborate?

JimP: Thanks for the reply. I don't believe that's the issue, as both documents show the "Before" and "After" spacing as 0, and if I'm not mistaken, that applies to the entire paragraph, not to the lines.

I use styles quite extensively when formatting books, but this is the first time I've come across this issue and am still puzzled.

One further option to check: Highlight the textual lines in question and check the box "Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style" following the "Before and After" space settings.

Try using the Format Painter tool (in the Clipboard section of the Home tab) to copy the formatting from the correctly spaced paragraph to the paragraph with the wrong spacing.

If that corrects the spacing, then the problem is with how that paragraph is defined. Select it and start going through its paragraph AND font definitions. Perhaps there was a local change to some of it.

Is there any differences in the Options > Advanced > Layout Options between the two documents?

Are both documents saved in the same format eg docx vs docx(Compatibility Mode) vs doc?

Does one document have embedded fonts?

What happens if you copy text from one document and paste it into the other?

Could you share (copies of) the documents with us? Delete anything important and then attach documents to this forum.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional