Setting spacing before or after a paragraph
You might want to automatically increase or decrease the amount of space before or after a paragraph so that the document looks consistent and flows easily. This is especially important when typing a thesis. The secret is not to format the document beforehand so that the result is consistent.
Follow these easy steps to set the spacing:
- Highlight the paragraphs you want to apply the spacing to.
- To apply or remove the spacing, use the line and paragraph spacing drop-down icon. Select the desired option at the bottom of the list. Don't add spaces between paragraphs of the same style.
- To control the amount of space you would like either in front of or after a paragraph, go to the Paragraph dialog box. Right-click on the selected text and choose Paragraph…:
- The Paragraph formatting dialog opens.
- In the Spacing section, adjust the paragraph spacing options as desired by clicking with the mouse pointer on the up arrow next to the Before: option. In the case of the preceding example, we used 6 pt before the paragraphs.
- Add 6 pt of blank space to the After: field.
- Click on OK to save the change. Note the changes.
Here, we can see these changes applied to the preceding example paragraph:
If styles have been applied throughout a document when formatting, it is important not to add a space between paragraphs of the same style. To explain further, if I applied 18 pt of spacing (after each paragraph) to the entire document but do not wish to add any extra space after all the main headings (which I have used the Heading 1 style for), then this option comes in handy. Adding a checkmark to this option prevents space from being added after all the Heading 1 styles in the document: