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You are here: Home / Word / How to Apply Double Spacing in Word for Office 365

How to Apply Double Spacing in Word for Office 365

posted on October 20, 2022

Setting up a document in Microsoft Word can be tricky if you have specific formatting requirements that you need to meet.

These requirements may include things like a certain word count, font, font size, and they might include a certain type of spacing.

One of the more common spacing options is double spacing, and it’s something that you can apply to a document that you are editing in Microsoft Word.

Our guide below will show you how to apply double spacing in Microsoft Word to a document that already has content.

Table of Contents hide
1 How to Make Something Double Spaced on Word for Office 365
2 How to Apply Double Spacing in Microsoft Word (Guide with Pictures)
3 How to Double Space in Word Online
4 More Information on How to Add Microsoft Word Double Spacing
5 Frequently Asked Questions About How to Double Space in Word Office 365

How to Make Something Double Spaced on Word for Office 365

  1. Select the document text.
  2. Click the Home tab.
  3. Click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button.
  4. Choose 2.0.

Our guide continues below with more information on using double spacing for your Microsoft Word document, including pictures of these steps.

Find out how to create a Microsoft Word template using one of your existing Word documents.

How to Apply Double Spacing in Microsoft Word (Guide with Pictures)

The steps in this article were performed in the Microsoft Word for Office 365 version of the application. However, these steps will also work in many other versions of Word.

These steps will show you how to double space in Word Office 365.

Step 1: Open your document in Microsoft Word.

Open the document to double-space.

Step 2: Click anywhere inside the document body, then press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to select the whole document.

select the whole document

Select the entire document.

(You can skip this step if you are working with a new, blank document.)

Step 3: Choose the Home tab at the top of the window.

select Home

Click the Home tab.

Step 4: Click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button in the Paragraph section of the ribbon.

click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button

Select the Line and Paragraph Spacing button.

Step 5: Click the 2.0 option from the dropdown menu.

how to apply double spacing in Microsoft Word

Choose the 2.0 option for double spacing.

Now that you know how to double space in Word for Office 365 you will be able to apply this type of spacing whenever you need it for one of your documents.

Our tutorial continues below with additional discussion about changing line spacing options in Microsoft Word.

You can find out more about changing formatting options in Word documents with our Word 365 change default font guide.

How to Double Space in Word Online

If you are editing a document in the online version of Microsoft Word, then the steps above won’t help you to double space your document.

The user interface in the Web browser version of Word is a bit different, but you still have the option to change the spacing between lines.

Step 1: Sign in to Word Online and open the document that you want to double space.

Step 2: Select any existing text to which you want to apply the double spaced formatting.

Step 3: Click the Home tab at the top left corner of the window.

click the Home tab

Step 4: Click the three dots at the far right end of the ribbon.

click the three dots

Step 5: Choose the Line Spacing option, then click the 2.0 option from the drop down list.

how to double space in Word Online

You can continue reading below for more on making double spaced Word documents.

More Information on How to Add Microsoft Word Double Spacing

You can also select the Line Spacing Options item from that dropdown menu if you would like control over other document spacing options, such as the indentation and the spacing before and after a paragraph.

If your document is double spaced and you need to make it single spaced, then steps are very similar. You just need to select the text in the document (clicking inside the document and pressing the Ctrl + A keyboard shortcut will highlight the entire document) click the Home tab, click the Line Spacing button, then choose the 1.0 option.

If you are always changing the line spacing when you open a Word document, then you might have more luck if you change the default line spacing option. You can do this if you select Line Spacing Options at the bottom of the list where you found the 2.0 line spacing option. This opens a new line spacing box.

There you can click the Line spacing dropdown, select “Double” from the drop down menu to set double spaced lines in the document, then click the Set as Default button at the bottom of the Paragraph dialog box.

You can then click the option for making this line spacing the default for just the current document, ot you can click the circle to the left of All documents based on the Normal template to change line spacing for all future documents that you create.

Learn how to use the thesaurus in Microsoft Word if you find that you are often referencing one when writing and want a more convenient option.

Frequently Asked Questions About How to Double Space in Word Office 365

Can I double space by default in Word for Office 365?

Yes, you are able to adjust the default line spacing for all of your future documents.

You will need to click the Home tab, then click the small Paragraph Settings dialog box launcher at the bottom-right of the Paragraph section in the ribbon.

You can then click the Line spacing dropdown menu and select the Double option.

Finally, you will click the Set as Default button at the bottom of the window to make this the default spacing for future documents.

How do I enable double spacing in a Word document?

Microsoft Word gives you the ability to choose your desired spacing option from a drop down box that you will find on the Home tab.

If you have already added content to your document then you will need to press Ctrl + A to select all of it, then you can click the Home tab.

You can then click the Line and Paragraph Spacing icon in the Paragraph group, then choose the 2.0 option.

Is there a way to use triple spacing in a Word document?

Yes, you can choose the 3.0 option from the same menu where you would click double space or single spacing options.

If you want to apply the new spacing setting to existing content, then you can either manually select some text in your document, or press Ctrl + A to choose everything. Word is going to change the spacing for any highlighted text in the document.

Once the text is selected, click the Home tab, choose the Line and Paragraph Spacing button, then change the line spacing to triple space by clicking the 3.0 option.

Why do my double spaced documents have more pages?

If you have single spaced text in a document, but you change from single space to double space, then the blank line between each line of text will be larger.

Thus, double spacing increases the amount of blank space between every line of text in your document, which means that it will ultimately increase the length of the document.

Matthew Burleigh
Matthew Burleigh

Matthew Burleigh has been a freelance writer since the early 2000s. You can find his writing all over the Web, where his content has collectively been read millions of times.

Matthew received his Master’s degree in Computer Science, then spent over a decade as an IT consultant for small businesses before focusing on writing and website creation.

The topics he covers for MasterYourTech.com include iPhones, Microsoft Office, and Google Apps.

You can read his full bio here.

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