How do I change double spacing to single spacing?

Anonymous
2010-11-26T20:09:12+00:00

When typing in Microsoft Word Starter everything comes up double spaced.  How to I change to get single space lines.

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Stefan Blom 352.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2012-08-04T19:19:24+00:00

You need to change the document defaults so that spacing before and after are both set to zero and so that the line spacing is Single. I believe this has been discussed earlier in this (long) thread.

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Anonymous
2010-11-26T21:30:22+00:00

And if you want it to always, from this point forward, to be the way new documents are created, after doing Doug's suggestion, click on the "Set as Default" button.

I don't have starter to check, but in full Word in the Home tab / Paragraph group an command called "Line and Paragraph Spacing" with a icon that consists of 4 horizontal lines with blue arrows pointing up and down on the left side and a downward pointing triangle on the right side.

If this proposed solution has resolved your issue(s), please mark it as  Propose as Answer  to let others know the solution that worked for you

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Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2010-11-26T21:16:23+00:00

Click on the Dialog Launcher in the Paragraph section of the Home tab of the Ribbon, or on the Line and Paragraph Spacing button immediately above the "ph" in the word "Paragraph" in that section of the Ribbon.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-01-13T15:06:04+00:00

    thanks for the quick reply.  I did this and instead of opening a document I am getting a 'Compile Error'.  now what

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  2. Stefan Blom 352.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2012-01-13T14:49:48+00:00

    Try opening the Normal template as a document and then repeat the procedure to specify the default Paragraph settings.

    To open Normal, you can do the following: Press Alt+F11 to display the Visual Basic Editor. Press Ctrl+G to activate the Immediate window. Type

    NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument

    and press Enter. Normal opens in a separate window (you can tell because the title bar says "Normal"--or "Normal.dotm" if you have file extensions displayed). Close the Visual Basic Editor. Make the changes in the Paragraph dialog box. Save and close Normal. Now try creating a new, blank document.

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