Large gap between words in Word. How to carry out word wrapping

There can be several reasons for too large spaces between words in Word documents - this may be a consequence of the formatting commands used for the entire text or individual blocks of it, or the use of special characters instead of regular spaces. Each of the reasons has its own methods of elimination, but if it is not possible to find out exactly the source of the defect in the text, you can consistently apply all the means.

Instructions

Start investigating the possible causes of excessive spaces between words, for example by checking the text formatting. If text is set to fit the width of the document, the text editor ensures that the first letters of the first words of each line are on the same vertical line, as are the last letters of the last words of the lines. To achieve this, the editor stretches the intervals between words in those lines where the number of characters is insufficient.

Select the problematic part of the text of the open document. If the spacing between words throughout the document needs correction, you can select it by pressing the hotkey combination CTRL + A (this is the Russian letter “F”). Once you've done this, click the left alignment command button - it's located on the Home tab in the Paragraph command group. You can replace clicking a button by pressing CTRL + L.

Check to see if tabs are used instead of spaces. To do this, enable the display of “non-printing characters” in the document - the corresponding button is located in the same group of “Paragraph” commands on the “Home” tab. Space characters will be indicated by raised dots above the baseline, and tab characters will be indicated by small arrows. If you find that these are the cause of the increased spaces, copy one of the tab characters and press CTRL + H to open the Find and Replace dialog.

Paste the copied space into the “Find” field, and enter a regular space into the “Replace with” field. Then click the "Replace All" button.

If, when displaying non-printable characters is enabled, it turns out that the reason for too large spaces is the presence of not one, but several spaces between words, then use the same search and replace dialog. Press the keyboard shortcut CTRL + H, put two spaces in the “Find” field, one space in the “Replace with” field, and then click the “Replace All” button. After that, press the same button again - in case there are not two spaces between the words, but more. Click the button until Word reports that the number of replacements completed is zero.

Hello, dear guests.

I want to tell you how to remove large spaces between words in Word. I’m sure you’ve encountered this situation more than once when aligning a document to width, copying it from other sources, etc.

I will share with you several ways to eliminate it, depending on the reasons for its occurrence, which are suitable for any version of Word.

Correcting alignment errors

Aligned the text width and got gaps between words? If the design is not too important, return the left alignment - this will be the fastest way.

Is that important? Then you will have to refine the beauty manually. As a rule, there are not many large spaces, so even in a large document this will not take a lot of time.

You need to select each gap and replace it with a space bar, holding it down simultaneously with the Ctrl and Shift keys.

When there are many large gaps

Suppose you copied text from another source and discovered that in Word it does not look so neat, but is full of large distances between words. Try reducing them this way:

• Select the entire contents of the document using the Ctrl + A key combination.
• Find the Layout/Page Setup area. It can be located in the tab of the same name or in the “Layout”. In older versions of Word, you need to go to Tools - Language instead.
• Click on the "Hyphenate" option.
• Select the Auto option.

Reason - character spacing

Are the distances between words increased due to line breaks? Here's how to fix it:

• Go to the menu “File - Options - Advanced”;
• Check the “Do not expand character spacing in a line with a break” checkbox.

Eliminating duplicate spaces

Is your problem too many double spaces? It is solved this way:

• Place the cursor at the very beginning of the text.
• On the “Home” tab, at the very end there should be an “Editing” area, and in it there should be a “Replace” option. Click it.
• A small window will open. In the top "Find" line, press the space bar twice, and in the bottom "Replace with" line - once.
• Click the "Replace All" button.

The program will replace repeated spaces with single spaces and notify you how many times it has done this. Most likely, all errors will not be corrected on the first try. After all, if you, for example, copied text from somewhere, then it may contain not only two spaces next to each other, but also three and four. So repeat this procedure until you are satisfied with the result.

Other characters disguised as spaces

It happens that gaps in the text appear due to tabs or non-breaking spaces. To calculate them, on the main panel in the “Paragraph” area, click the “Display all characters” button.

Next, you need to repeat the replacement operation from the previous instruction, but only copy the interfering sign into the “Find” line. Or you can click the “More” button in the same window, and then click “Special”, and select, for example, a tab character or another that spoils the picture.

Even when aligning, the distance between paragraphs may increase when they were made with the Shift key, which means moving to another line. When you click the “Show all characters” button, this case is indicated by a left-curved arrow located at the end of the lines. If there are few such characters, delete them manually by placing the cursor in front of them and pressing Delete.

In these simple ways we quickly dealt with the problem.

Neatly formatted and laid out text looks smooth primarily due to the fact that the distance between words is approximately the same. It is through this that the balance of “white and black” in the document is achieved. However, when text is justified, it often creates such large spaces between words that it looks “leaky.” Voids can be noticeable to the eye, and often the width of the gap in Word is so large that it interferes not only with aesthetic perception, but also with reading.

Possible causes of large gaps

This usually happens because Word uses spaces as a margin for line alignment.

There are other reasons too. For example, there may be not one, but two or more spaces between words.

How to deal with this? How to remove large spaces in Word? There are several ways to do this. Spaces between words in Word can be aligned and the text made more neat, and for this you need to know the reason for the appearance of “gaps”.

Hyphenation

The first way to remove large spaces in Word is to hyphenate. The program may distribute words inaccurately, leaving long spaces between them, due to the fact that this is the only way for it to align the line. So we need to let her regulate

If your text does not have automatic hyphenation, activate this feature. To do this you need to do the following. Go to the "Page Layout" tab. In it you need to find the “Hyphenation” button. (It's under Page Setup.) Click on it. Check the box next to “Auto”.

The program will hyphenate, the length of words will be adjusted, and large spaces will disappear.

Extra spaces

As already mentioned, large gaps in the text of Word can arise due to the fact that some of them are simply superfluous. To make sure of this, activate the “Display all characters” function. To do this, you can press the Ctrl and * keys. Space characters will appear as dots between words in the vertical center of the line. If they really are repeated, double spaces need to be removed.

For these purposes, use the search and replace function.

Press the Ctrl and F keys. In the window that appears, select the “Replace” tab. In the Find What field, type two spaces. There is one in the “Replace” line. This way you can remove all double spaces automatically. Next, click the “Replace All” button. The program will issue a report on the number of operations performed. However, that's not all. After all, initially the text may contain not only double, but also triple, etc. spaces. Click “Replace All” again and wait for the program to report. Repeat the procedure until the program tells you that it has made 0 replacements.

Double spaces have been removed from the text.

Reducing whitespace in professional layout

A text editor, in principle, is not entirely intended for professional layout, but sometimes it is necessary for the text to look neat, and using a special application is either redundant, irrational, or simply inaccessible.

In this case, a logical question arises about how to remove large spaces in Word. After all, for professional layout it is not enough that the text is neatly formatted. It is necessary, for example, to compress a paragraph so that its last line disappears in the form of one small word.

In this and many other cases, you can artificially reduce the amount of space. This requires the search function and the Font window options.

Select the text (for example, a paragraph) in which you want to reduce white space. Call up the search window. In the Find What field, type a space. Click the "Find in" button and select "Current fragment" from the drop-down list. All spaces in your paragraph will be highlighted.

Open the “Font” window (Ctrl and D), select the “Spacing” tab and in the field of the same name select the “Condensed” option. It is recommended to reduce the gap value to no more than -0.4 (ideally - to -0.2). Click OK. All previously selected characters will be condensed, and the text will occupy less space. The amount of spaces has been reduced.

Thus, there are at least three ways to remove large spaces in Word. An alternative to all of them can sometimes be left or right alignment, but only if it is appropriate from the point of view of the aesthetics and graphics of the text.

In most cases, working in Word does not raise any questions for the user. And what questions can there be if the program is, in general, simple, with a clear and accessible interface. However, no one is immune from failures, and sometimes incomprehensible situations still arise. At the same time, sometimes an experienced Word user cannot cope with them, so what can we say about beginners.

Method one

As usual, there will be several options for solving the problem, and I will start with the simpler one, in my opinion. To remove the huge space between words that appears out of nowhere, do the following. First, delete it, for example, or use the button. Now you need to simultaneously press three keys on the keyboard, namely: ++spacebar. After you do this, a normal one will appear in place of the huge gap, just as it should be.

Method two

Most often, such double spaces occur when text is aligned to the width of the sheet. If this point is not important for you, it is better to choose left-aligned text, which will allow you to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Well, from theory to practice: what should you do if there is already a huge gap in your text that spoils the aesthetic appearance of the document? Let’s use, which is located in the “Home” tab, in the “Editing” subcategory. There is a “Replace” button, click on it.

After clicking on it, a window with two empty fields will appear. It’s easy to guess that in the “Find” field you must enter two spaces in a row, and in the “Replace with” field - one space. Now, when, after aligning the text, two spaces are formed between words in the text, the text editor will automatically correct them to one.


As it turns out, the big gap isn’t as bad as it seemed before, right? As you can see, the problem can be solved easily and does not require special knowledge and skills from the user.

Video to help

Don’t know how to use Word or have forgotten how to find any important function for editing text? 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 this short course, you will be able to successfully perform 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:

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph of your text that you need to align.
2. 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.
3. After going to this group, find the “Width” button in it and immediately click.
4. 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 is 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:

1. Large spaces can occur due to the use of various commands when performing line alignment.
2. They appear due to the use of special characters instead of spaces.
3. Formatting text or some parts of it after justification can also cause this problem.
4. 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 the cause of large spaces is inter-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.