How to fix spaces between words in Word. How to remove large spaces between words in Word

Do you need to quickly correct a document with a lot of incorrect spaces and other characters? Thanks to the resources of Word, you can do this in just a few minutes.

Large intervals in the text may occur due to various reasons, for example, due to incorrect formatting or the use of special characters. Moreover, the spacing between words in Word can be different both throughout the text and in its individual parts. There are a number of possibilities to correct the situation in Word.

Checking text formatting

The text can have text justification active. In this case, the editor automatically sets spaces between words. Justification means that all first and last letters in each line must be located on the same vertical. This is impossible to do with equal spaces, so the editor increases the spacing between words. Most often, text in this format is not very well perceived visually.

Align text left

Using this function, the text becomes less visually attractive, but all spaces that are set are immediately the same size. Follow these steps:

Select the text where the spaces are not equal (if this is the entire document, then select it with the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl+A”);
Then, in the “Paragraph” section of the Control Panel, on the “Home” tab, click “Align Left” or use the “Ctrl+L” hotkey.

Removing tabs and special characters

It is possible that non-standard spacing was caused by the use of tab characters (Tab key). To check this, enable the "non-printing characters" feature. You can also enable it in the “Paragraph” section. By pressing the button, you will see small dots appear in place of all the spaces. If your text contains tabs, a small arrow will appear at those locations. One or two spaces can be removed by simply pressing the “BackSpace” key. If there are a lot of tab characters, it is better to do it differently:

Copy any tab character;
Activate the “Find and Replace” function by pressing the “hot” keys “Ctrl+H”;
In the window that opens, on the “Replace” tab, in the “Find” line, insert this character (or press “Ctrl+H”);
In the “Replace with...” line, enter one space;
Click the "Replace All" button.

All tabs in the text will automatically be replaced by a single space.

If, after activating the non-printing character mode, you see that the reason for large spacing in the text is large number spaces, use the same Find and Replace function. First, enter two spaces in the “Find” field and perform a search. Then three, and so on, until the number of replacements completed is zero.

Formatted files

DOC and DOCX files can use advanced editing. Open the file in Word and make the required settings. For example, instead of a single space, you can set a double space. You can also use special characters, such as long space/short space, 1/4 space. To insert such characters throughout the document, use the same hot keys to open the Find and Replace window. By default, there are no special characters there, so you first need to insert such a character into the text, copy it from there and then paste it in the search and replace window. Where can I get the space pattern? To do this:

Open the “Insert” tab on the “Control Panel”;
Click "Symbol", then "Other";
Go to the "Special Characters" section and find there the right sign space;
Paste it into the text.

The resulting sample can be immediately cut by pressing the key combination “Ctrl+X”. It can then be pasted into the required field.

Working with html code

If you need to change spacing not in Word, but in a web document, this operation is even easier. There is a special function in the code called word-spacing. With its help, you can set a certain interval for the entire document. To do this, you need to insert the following between the head tags:

Instead of 30px, you can set any other pixel value.

How to change letter spacing

While working with Word, you may also need to change the spacing between letters. This can be useful if you need to somehow highlight a specific piece of text. Such intervals can be sparse or dense.

Changing spacing in Word 2003

To set a different letter spacing, follow these steps:

Go to the “Format” section and click “Font” (or the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + D”;
Open the "Interval" menu;
Press "Enter".

Changing spacing in Word 2007

Use the following algorithm:

Go to the “Home” menu, then to the “Font” section;
Open the “Interval” tab;
Check the box “Sparse” or “Dense” and enter the required digital value;
Press "Enter".

If you need a similar function constantly, you can set hotkeys for sparse and compact intervals.

Open the “Tools” menu and go to the “Settings” window;
Go to the “Keyboard” section;
In the “Categories” item, click the “Format” line, and in the “Commands” item - the “Condensed” (for compacted intervals) or “Expanded” (for sparse intervals) line;
Specify keyboard shortcuts by pressing them on your keyboard.

Open the "Options" menu and go to the "Settings" window;
Click "Categories" and select "All Teams";
In the “Commands” item, select the “Condensed” or “Expanded” line and specify a key combination for them.

Even if you open a text file and see complete chaos, putting everything in order is not difficult. By performing all the described steps in turn, you can remove unnecessary intervals. And you can apply the acquired knowledge in the future.

Well designed, formatted, looks attractive. Sometimes this is hampered by large distances between words, making it “holey”, interfering with aesthetics and causing inconvenience when reading. In addition, sometimes serious formatting is required when preparing documentation. And you have to think about how to reduce the space between words in Word.

There are several reasons for the appearance of such voids. When solving a problem, first find out the reasons for its occurrence. These could be hidden signs or you accidentally pressed the button twice. Below we will tell you why they form and how to remove large spaces in Word. The information is undoubtedly useful for novice users and more experienced ones who have had to deal with this task.

You can find errors manually. To do this, on the “Home” tab, in the “Paragraph” section, activate “Display all characters”. All formatting symbols will become visible to you, the space looks like a dot in the middle between the words. If you see a double (two dots next to each other), you just have to remove one.
In Word 2013, double/triple long spaces are highlighted as an error; you can fix it - remove the extra ones - by clicking on the underlined error right click mouse, select the desired option in the menu that appears.

These methods are quite inconvenient and time-consuming. Therefore, we recommend using an automated option that allows you to remove unnecessary items from the entire Word file.

Remove quickly and easily extra spaces You can use the “Replace” function. In Word 2003 it is located on the “Edit” tab, and in Word 2007/2010 it is on the “Home” tab on the right, in “Editing”.

Click on "Replace".
In the window that opens, in the “Find” column, enter a double space.
In the “Replace with” column, put a single space.
At the bottom of the window, click the “Replace All” button.

The editor will notify you of the results in additional window: “Word has completed searching the document. Number of replacements made:..." Repeat the procedure until the editor shows 0 replacements in the results.

You can also see extra spaces using the spell check service on the website http://text.ru/spelling. Once you check there, you will see where they are (they will be highlighted by the program), then delete them in your Word document.

Invisible signs

The distance between words in a document can be increased by invisible characters. They usually appear after copying them into Word from the Internet. They can also be removed manually by opening them with the “Display all characters” button. If such hidden characters there are many, it is more convenient to remove them through replacement: after copying these characters, paste them into the “Find” column in the “Replace” window, leaving the bottom line empty (what we are replacing with).

Professional layout

You have large spaces between words and want to reduce them, for example, to reduce the number of lines. How to artificially reduce a space in Word so that it simply becomes shorter?

Select the part of the text where you want to reduce the distance between words. Using the “Find” - “Advanced Search” function, open the window, enter a space there and click “Find in”.
There, select "Current Fragment". You will see all the spaces in the selected text.
Activate the "More" button to add additional options. There at the bottom of “Find”, follow the links “Format” - “Font” - “Advanced” - “Spacing”.
In the list, click “Compacted”.
Install the seal you require, click OK.

The distance between words will decrease, the text in Word will shrink and take up less space.

Gaps between words, caused by copying text into Word and formatting it using the alignment function, reduce aesthetics. If you didn’t know how to remove long spaces in Word, try following the steps in our instructions, and you will see that it is not difficult, that you can format your texts yourself, and even do professional layout yourself.

There are many different reasons for the appearance of such inconvenient large spaces that spoil the whole appearance text document - most often this is a consequence of using incorrect characters when formatting text. Correcting text formatting can be quite a complex and time-consuming task when you need to apply the most different ways getting rid of long spaces.

Formatting spaces in text

Before you begin serious text formatting efforts, first try to find out the reason. If you set the text to standard width alignment when typing, the editor can automatically monitor and adjust the size of spaces in the text so that the alignment is as correct as possible. And to do this, the editor automatically stretches the spaces so that the first and last letters of each line are flush with each edge of the document. In this case, the text will remain with long spaces and will have to be corrected manually by deleting or adding necessary words along the path of the text.

Next, make sure that when typing, you did not use special tabs instead of standard text spaces, which are used quite rarely, but can still be found in texts. This especially applies to text files downloaded from the Internet or files whose format has been changed. Open tab mode in your document and it will show you all of its characters. Tab characters are small arrows, similar to those printed on the enter button on your keyboard. If the problem is with tabs, just do autocorrect, it's very fast and doesn't require any additional skills. Just type a tab into the AutoCorrect window and set the command to replace it with a regular space. Click Replace All and perform AutoCorrect throughout the document. All spaces after this should become normal size. As you can see, tabulation is most often of fundamental importance when formatting text documents, so it needs to be given special attention. increased attention so that when forwarding your recipient does not see a sloppy document with non-standard spaces.

These two methods allow you to correct spaces in any situation with their non-standard size. Text editor Word provides great opportunities for the functionality of the program and allows you to format text in a way that is suitable for the design of text documents specifically for you.

How to remove large spaces: video

You don’t know how to use Word or have forgotten how to find any important function for text editing? If so, this article will definitely interest you.

During time, people often face the problem of large gaps. Below we will tell you how to correctly perform width alignment in Word, and how to use various functions in this program. So after reading short course you will be able to successfully complete all the work you need to do.

First, let's define what such an expression as “width alignment” actually means. This is how your finished text will appear on the page. Indeed, in addition to width alignment, there are three more types of its distribution:

on the left edge;
in the center;
on the right edge.

And each of them has its own algorithm of actions.

How can I align text in width?

So, in order for you to successfully complete the width alignment process, you need to do the following:

Click anywhere in the paragraph of your text that you need to align.
Now find the “Home” tab at the top of the Word page. It has five subgroups ("Clipboard", "Font", "Paragraph", "Styles", "Editing"), among which you need to pay attention to the "Paragraph" group.
After going to this group, find the “Width” button in it and immediately click.
Your text is now aligned.

How not to align text

You don't need to use the keyboard's Spacebar or Tab buttons to align. Since this will take you a lot of time, and the main width of the text will be either larger or smaller.

How to remove spaces after alignment

It should be noted that once you have finished the job of aligning the text to the width, your concern will not end there, since you may well end up with large spaces between words. But this problem It's also extremely easy to fix. Below we offer you several methods that will help answer the question - how to remove spaces when aligning by width.

Reasons for large spaces in text

Before moving on to eliminating large gaps, it would be wise to determine the reason for their occurrence, since each of them has its own individual way of solving it.

There are several reasons for this problem:

Large spaces may occur due to the use of various commands when performing line alignment.
They appear due to use special characters instead of spaces.
Formatting text or some parts of it after justification can also cause this problem.
If you typed the “End of Line” character and then pressed the ENTER+SHIFT keys, you will automatically move to the next line of your text, after which large spaces will form.

Tricks for closing large gaps

If you are unable to determine what exactly is the origin of these largest gaps, then simply follow all the elimination techniques suggested below. And remember the above reasons for the future, so as not to accidentally leave a large gap in the text.

Removing Large Spaces

The first way to solve this problem is that you simply need to remove the large spacebar and put a normal one in its place; to do this, you need to simultaneously press three buttons on the keyboard of your computer: SHIFT + CTRL + SPACEBAR.

Hyphenation

In order to get rid of large spaces in the entire text at once, you need to:

select it completely;
after that, go to the “Page Layout” tab;
There, find the “Hyphenation” tab and click “Auto”.

After this the problem will be solved.

Tabulation

Find out if tabs were used instead of spaces. To do this, you need to enable the display of “non-printing characters” in the text. To perform this action you must do the following:

go to the “Home” tab;
in the “Paragraph” group, click the “Non-printing characters” button (¶).

After completing the steps presented, all non-printing characters will be displayed in the text, and you will be able to find out whether tabs are causing the problem.

If so, then you just need to copy one of them and press CTRL+F, after which you will have a replacement window. In the first field of this window, insert text with a large space, and in the second - the text created by pressing three buttons on your keyboard SHIFT + CTRL + SPACEBAR. After that, you need to click on the “Find and Replace” button.

After completing all of the above steps, the replacement will be made and large gaps in the document will disappear.

Inter-sign intervals

If large spaces are caused by character spacing, then you should do the following:

in the top menu, find the “File” tab;
then follow it;
in the menu that opens, select the “Settings” tab;
after that, you will have a table with parameters, and you will need to select the “Advanced” item, and in it check the “Do not expand character spacing in a line with a break.”

Conclusion

After reading this article, you learned how to correctly perform width alignment in Word. Now, when you need to perform the named action when editing your text, you can solve all the problems yourself. Also, now you can identify all the causes of the so-called large gaps and eliminate them yourself.

In documents of the format Microsoft Word or, in other words, in Word quite often there are large spaces between words. However, many documents require strict formatting. Therefore, when working in Word, it is useful to know how to remove large spaces quickly and easily.

Ways to eliminate spaces in Word

The most common reason for large spaces between words in Word is the alignment of the text. If this is not a prerequisite for formatting the text, you can select all the text or a fragment of it and make the alignment “Left”. To do this, click on the “Home” tab button with horizontal lines aligned to the left.
Another way to remove extra spaces is to use the Replace function. In Word versions from 2007 and 2010. it is located on the right side of the control panel on the Home tab. In Word 2003, the “Replace” function must be called through the “Edit” tab. When you click on “Replace” a dialog box will appear in front of you. In the “Find” column you should put two spaces, in the “Replace with” column - one space. After that, you click "Replace All". The procedure should be repeated until the editor replaces all repeating spaces with single spaces and shows you 0 as the result of the replacements.
Large spaces between words in Word can create not only double spaces, but also other invisible characters. In order for them to become noticeable, you need to click the “Display all characters” button, which is indicated as “Pi” and is located on the control panel in the “Paragraph” section, on the “Home” tab. Once all the invisible icons are visible to you, you can copy them one by one and paste them into the Replace dialog box. In this case, you paste the copied character into the “Find” line, and leave the “Replace with” line empty and fill it with a single space.