If Word shows unusually wide gaps between words, check the paragraph’s alignment first. Justified text stretches lines to meet both margins, so short lines can develop large gaps. If you can use a ragged right edge, select the affected paragraphs and choose Home > Align Left. Do not change line spacing or paragraph spacing to fix horizontal gaps.
Diagnose the stretched words
- Select one affected paragraph, rather than the whole document.
- On Home, check whether Justify is active in the Paragraph group. If it is, choose Align Left and compare the result.
- Turn on Home > Show/Hide ¶ to see spaces, tabs, and paragraph marks. If a line ends with a manual line break, the paragraph can still be justified across that short line. Review the break before removing or replacing it.
- If the gaps are actual typed spaces, remove the extras.
Microsoft explains alignment and justification; its Show/Hide guidance explains the visible formatting marks.
Keep justified text if the design requires it
Justification necessarily changes spacing between words to align both margins. If you must retain it, inspect short lines, manual line breaks, narrow columns, and long words. Editing the text or the width of the text area may improve the result. Automatic hyphenation may help some documents, but review its effects before applying it across a file. Do not replace regular word spaces with nonbreaking spaces throughout a paragraph; that can worsen line breaks.
Replace double spaces throughout the document
If Show/Hide reveals two or more space dots between words, Find and Replace can clean them up quickly.
- Press Ctrl+H on Windows, or choose Home > Replace.
- In Find what, type two spaces.
- In Replace with, type one space.
- Select Find Next and Replace to check a few matches, then select Replace All.
- Repeat Replace All until Word reports no more matches. Runs of three or more spaces need several passes.
If a gap is a tab arrow instead of space dots, delete the tab and type a single space, unless the tab is lining up a list or table on purpose.
Check for expanded character spacing
If the letters inside words also look spread out, the text may have expanded character spacing. That setting adds space after every character, including spaces.
- Select the affected text.
- On Home, select the Font dialog launcher in the corner of the Font group.
- Open the Advanced tab.
- Set Spacing to Normal and Scale to 100%, then select OK.
Stop justified lines from stretching at a manual line break
A justified line that ends with a manual line break (Shift+Enter) is stretched across the full width. In Word for Windows you can turn that off for the document:
- Select File > Options > Advanced.
- Scroll to the bottom and expand the Layout options list.
- Check the option that stops Word from expanding character spaces on a line ending with Shift+Return, then select OK.
Replacing the manual line break with a regular paragraph break (Enter) also stops the stretching.
What will not fix word gaps?
Line spacing controls vertical distance between lines. Before and After settings control vertical distance between paragraphs. Font kerning changes spacing between certain pairs of characters. These settings are useful for other layout problems but are not the first fix for stretched spaces between words.
If the problem persists after aligning left, inspect the marks for repeated spaces or tabs. Use the linked checklist to correct only the affected text.
What if the weird spacing is between lines or paragraphs?
Big vertical gaps come from paragraph settings, not word spacing. Select the affected paragraphs, open the Paragraph dialog launcher on the Home tab, and check Before, After, and Line spacing on the Indents and Spacing tab. Set Before and After to 0 pt and Line spacing to Single to tighten the text. To make those values the default for new documents based on the Normal template, select Set As Default in the same dialog. Our guide on how to remove unwanted space in Word covers the other causes of vertical gaps.
Matt has been writing about Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft products since the days of Windows XP. He spends much of his time writing for sites like WindowBrain.com