Double-Spacing Your Document

If you are writing for a living, you already know that many publishers require a printed copy of your manuscript to be submitted double-spaced. This allows them to manually edit the manuscript prior to typesetting. (Yes, there are still some publishers who do not edit manuscripts online. Sad, but true.) As you are writing, you probably will want to keep your manuscript single-spaced so you can see more of it on the screen at a time. When you are ready to print, there is a quick way to double-space your document:

1. Save your document.
2. Press Ctrl+A or choose Select All from the Edit menu.
3. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
4. Click the small icon at the bottom-right corner of the Paragraph group. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Paragraph dialog box.

5. Choose Double in the Line Spacing box.
6. Click on OK.
7. Print your document.
8. Close your document without saving.

This last step is important. If you save your document before exiting, then the double spacing will be saved with the document, as well. If that happens, then upon opening the document again you will need to follow the above steps and, in step 5, choose Single to change the line spacing back to what it was originally.

If you are a person that likes to use the keyboard in preference to the mouse, then you can double-space your document even faster. Follow these steps:

1. Save your document.
2. Press Ctrl+A or choose Select All from the Edit menu.
3. Press Ctrl+2. (Don't use the numeric keypad; use the 2 that is above the main keyboard keys.)
4. Print your document.
5. Close your document without saving.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13317) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Double-Spacing Your Document.