Setting spacing before or after aparagraph in Microsoft Word 2019

You might want to automatically increase or decrease the amount ofspace before or after a paragraph so that the document looks consistentand flows easily. This is especially important when typing a thesis. Thesecret is not to format the documentbeforehand so that the result is consistent.

Follow these easy steps to set the spacing:

1. Highlight the paragraphs you want to apply the spacing to.
2. To apply or remove the spacing, use the line and paragraph spacingdrop-down icon. Select the desired option at the bottom of the list.Don’t add spaces between paragraphs of the same style.
3. To control the amount of space you would like either in front of orafter a paragraph, go to the Paragraphdialog box. Right-click on the selected text and choose Paragraph…:

4. The Paragraph formatting dialogopens.
5. In the Spacing section, adjust theparagraph spacing options as desired by clicking with the mousepointer on the up arrow next to the Before: option. In the case of the precedingexample, we used 6 pt before theparagraphs.

6. Add 6 pt of blank space tothe After: field.
7. Click on OK to save the change.Note the changes.

Here, we can see these changes applied to the preceding exampleparagraph:

If styles have been applied throughout a document when formatting, itis important not to add a space betweenparagraphs of the same style. To explain further, if I applied 18 pt of spacing (after each paragraph) tothe entire document but do not wish to add any extra space after all themain headings (which I have used the Heading 1 style for), then this optioncomes in handy. Adding a checkmark to this option prevents space frombeing added after all the Heading 1styles in the document: