Word Right-click in the text and select Paragraph from the menu. To get accurate spacing, you should always set it yourself, exactly. Microsoft Word’s “double” spacing, for instance, is about 15% looser, and it varies depending on the font.
So if you’re required to use a 12-point font, double line spacing means 24 points.Ĭuriously, the so-called “double” line-spacing option in your word processor doesn’t produce true double line spacing. On a typewriter, each line is the height of the font, thus double spacing means twice the font size. That’s why court rules usually call for double-spaced lines. Most courts adopted their line-spacing standards in the typewriter era. The traditional term for line spacing is leading (rhymes with bedding), so named because traditional print shops put strips of lead between lines of type to increase vertical space.
But double-spacing is still looser than optimal. Single-spaced typewritten text is dense and hard to read. Therefore, line-spacing choices were limited to one, two, or more lines at a time. Originally, a typewriter’s platen could only move the paper vertically in units of a single line. These habits are obsolete typewriter habits.
Most writers use either double-spaced lines or single-spaced lines-nothing in between-because those are the options presented by word processors. Line spacing is the vertical distance between lines of text.