(I am ignoring the “at least” setting, for now.) Easy enough, right? If you want 2 points of space between each line of 12-point text, set “Exactly” to 14 points. The “Exactly” setting seems like it should be straightforward. Where possible, never use the “Exactly” or “At Least” settings. Single, 1.5 lines, Double, and Multiple are all straightforward: the line spacing is 14 points, 21 points, 28 points, or 14 x points per line. When you go into the Paragraph formatting panel in Word, there are six settings: Single, 1.5 lines, Double, At least, Exactly, and Multiple. The important part about line spacing is knowing how to edit it. Even today, there is some confusion in the legal industry about whether “double-spaced” means 28 lines per page or 23 lines per page. Combine that with standard word processor margins of one inch (top and bottom), and you’re left with 23 lines per page. So, single spacing for a 12-point font is actually 14 points per line, and double spacing is 28 points per line. In Word, Times New Roman actually has about 2 points of extra white space built in. Old legal pleadings (and legal pleadings in jurisdictions that require pleading paper) thus have 28 numbered lines per page.īut, the simple days are behind us. At 3 lines per inch, this left room for 28 lines per page. On a standard letter-sized page, one left a one-inch top margin and a half-inch bottom margin, leaving 9.5 inches of usable space. Your only real options for line spacing were to type single-spaced with 12 points per line, or to insert a carriage return between line to double-space the text at 24 points per line.ĭouble-spacing - 24 points per line or 3 lines per inch - became the norm in much writing, in particular legal writing. This was a mechanical feature of the type writer it could not be changed.

Back in the old days of typewriters, line spacing was always 6 lines per inch (12 points per line). Time for a brief (but important!) history lessson.

The most common line spacings used are “Single” spacing and “Double” spacing.

How to fix spacing in word on a mac