How to remove large spaces between words. How to remove spaces between words in Word? Is it possible to avoid adding extra large spaces?

You don’t know how to use Word or have forgotten how to find any important function for text editing? In this case 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 perform all the work you need.

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 moving to this group Find the “Fit to width” button in it and press it immediately.
  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 finish 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 gaps may occur due to the use various teams when performing line width 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, then you will experience automatic transition on the next line of your text, after which large spaces are formed.

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 put in the text big gap.

Removing Large Spaces

The first way to solve this problem is that you simply need to remove the large space and put a normal one in its place, for this you need to make simultaneous pressing using three buttons on your computer keyboard: 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-printable 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:

  • V top menu find the “File” tab;
  • then follow it;
  • in the menu that opens, select the “Settings” tab;
  • after that, you will see 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.

When typing text or in a downloaded file in Word, you may notice that there are large spaces between words. Don't be alarmed, this is normal and completely fixable. In our article we will try to figure out why this happens and how to remove large spaces in Word.

Justification

If we look at how to remove large spaces in Word, the first thing we need to talk about is the problem with alignment. After all, it is the most common one. Although its essence lies in the little things, and users make mistakes simply out of carelessness. But first things first. Let's figure out how to remove large spaces between words in Word if the problem is with the width alignment.

There are two solutions. Let's start with the one that turns out to be the simplest. Try changing the alignment - instead of the "width" option, select "left". Of course, it is possible that this method won't work. After all, often the problem lies in the formatting of the file. Or it may be that this alignment does not suit you. Then use the second method.

The second method is that we will use hotkeys: CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR. Who doesn’t know, the combination of these keys gives that very short space bar. All you need to do is replace large spaces with short ones.

Problem with non-printable end-of-line character

We have already figured out how to remove large spaces in Word if the cause is incorrect alignment. But although this problem the most common, it is not the only one. Now we will analyze the situation when the “hero of the occasion” is a non-printable “end of line” character.

We won’t rant about what an unprintable sign is and why it is needed in Word; it’s better to get straight to the point. First of all, you will need to enable the display of these same symbols. This is done by clicking on the corresponding button, which is located on top panel, in the "Home" tab. However, you can see its location in the proposed image.

By clicking on this button, you will see all non-printing characters, including the “end of line”. It is this symbol that does us harm. It looks like a curved arrow pointing to the left. All you have to do is remove it. After this, the spaces are normalized.

So you’ve learned how to remove large spaces in Word when the problem lies in the non-printable “end of line” character. By the way, this sign is placed when you press the SHIFT+ENTER key combination, so be careful not to accidentally place it.

Tab problem

Large spaces can also be caused by tabulation. We also won’t go into what it is. I just want to say right away that this sign is again non-printable, and it is placed when you press the TAB key.

You might have already guessed that since this character is non-printable, its removal occurs, as in the previous example, by displaying non-printing characters. That's exactly how it is. Turn on display and look for short arrows pointing to the right in the text. This is tabulation. Like last time, you need to change all these arrows to spaces, and the text will become normal look- large spaces will disappear.

Replacing large spaces with short ones

So, we have learned the last, third way to remove large spaces in Word text. But what to do if there are an unimaginable number of tabs throughout the text. Agree, few people want to remove them one by one on their own. That is why we will now present a method that will help you instantly change all these characters to the short spaces we need.

Probably everyone has heard about “Replacement” in Word. This is the function we will use. To begin, copy one tab character to the clipboard (CTRL+C). After that, run "Find and Replace" (CTRL+H). There will be two fields: "Find" and "Replace". In the first place place the copied tab character, and in the second place a space. Click the "Replace All" button and all large spaces will be replaced with short ones.

Due to incorrect text changes in Word document, users often encounter the problem of large spaces between words.
Basically, changing the size of spaces should be done because the text is not aesthetically beautiful. Of course, this is not the main problem when drawing up a document, but the appearance of what is written on paper is also not the last criterion in the design of articles. Let's figure out how to remove huge indents in MS Word.

How to unhyphenate words in Word

There are several reasons for large gaps popping up, and accordingly, for each there will be different solutions. Let's consider each option separately.

Justification

This reason is the most relevant when writing text.

When you select wider alignment, all words are aligned vertically. Large indents appear due to the fact that there are too few words in a line, and they stretch over the entire sheet.

To change these formatting consequences, you can just set the text alignment to the left. But this option is only suitable if the change in width is not important for your document.

In order to align text to the left, you must perform the following steps:


Using special characters instead of simple spaces

The problem may also be that the user has put certain characters instead of indentation. This option makes the distance between words larger not only in the last sentence of the paragraph, but throughout the entire text. If you want to determine if this is the cause of the large gaps, you should follow these steps:


End of paragraph sign

It happens that a document has certain formatting rules, such as alignment. In this case, a long gap may occur at the end of a particular line. The first thing you need to do is turn on the display of all symbols, which will help identify the presence of the icon "End of Paragraph".

Removing an unnecessary character can be done manually or using search and replace throughout the document. The procedure was discussed in this article in the previous paragraph.

Presence of unnecessary spaces

Even though it's enough simple mistake, it is more common than any other spacing problem. If a space was placed twice, the editor will automatically highlight it, but if there are no spaces large quantity– the program will consider that they were made intentionally. Most often, this situation occurs when copying pages from the Internet or transferring text fragments from other documents.

The first thing you need to do is start showing non-printable characters in the “Paragraph” tab. In the presence of extra spaces There will be more than one black dot between words. You can correct this situation manually by removing unnecessary signs or using automatic replacement throughout the text.


How to carry out word wrapping

To reduce spaces in the text using word wrapping, you need to do the following:


In our article you can find the reasons for the appearance of large gaps, and most importantly, fix this problem yourself. In order for your text to be accepted beautiful view and didn't attract attention large indents between words, follow the points described above and required document will become easily readable.

Before reducing spaces between words in the text, you need to find out the reason why they occurred. There may be several of them:

  • align text width;
  • extra spaces;
  • tabs between words or long spaces.

All these problems can arise, for example, due to copying text from the Internet. To bring the text into proper form, it is necessary to get rid of all the above reasons in order.

A common reason for large spaces between words is the alignment of text. With this alignment, words are evenly distributed along the entire length of the line by increasing the distance between them.

To change this, you need to do the following:


If the text formatting requirements indicate that width alignment is necessary, then the easiest way to reduce spaces is to set automatic word hyphens.

To do this you need:


If both methods did not work, then the problem was not with the text alignment. Perhaps it's a matter of extra spaces.

Extra spaces

You can remove extra spaces in the text manually, which will take a lot of time, or use the following algorithm:


In this moment appearance The documents should already be improved. If there is still extra space between words, then perhaps the text has Special symbols that need to be removed.

Tab characters

Sometimes there may be tabs between words instead of spaces. To detect it, you need:

  1. On the “Home” tab, go to the “Paragraph” section and click on the “Paragraph” sign; when you click it, all hidden characters are displayed. The tab will appear as a small arrow.

  2. Next, you need to perform the same sequence of actions as when replacing a double space with a single one. To do this, in the “Home” tab, in the “Editing” section, click “Replace”.

  3. In the window that appears, insert a tab character in the “Find” field. To do this, click “More”.

  4. Then – “Special”.

  5. Select “Tab character” from the drop-down menu.

  6. In the “Replace with” field, put one space.

  7. Click "Replace All".

Special symbols

Sometimes, instead of a regular space, there may be a long space between words or non-breaking space. If you click display hidden characters, then in the text they will be in the form of a circle instead of a dot.


To replace long spaces for regular or short, you need:


Important! You can replace the regular space, which is placed using the keyboard, with a short space or ¼ space. But when standard size font (12 pt) the difference will not be very noticeable.

Sometimes it happens that after typing text on last page There are a few lines left in the section, which is contrary to the layout rules. According to standards, the sheet must be filled at least 1/3.

To fix this, you need to perform the following steps:

  1. Select the last paragraph of a section or better all chapter. In the second case, the changes will not be so noticeable.

  2. Click right button mouse and select “Font”.

  3. In the window that opens, go to the “Interval” tab.

  4. Select “Compacted”, and enter in the field with the value minimum value 0.1 pt.

  5. If there is still text on the sheet, then you need to increase the size until all extra text will not appear on the previous page.

Important! This method is also suitable for headlines if one or two words have changed to next line. Another method: put a non-breaking space between words; to do this, use the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl+Shift+Space” or special signs in the "Symbol" tab.

Difference between Word 2003 and Word 2007

The information presented in the article is relevant for Word versions 2007. The table shows the differences between versions text editor when formatting text.

ActionWord 2003Word 2007
Changing letter spacingFormat > Font >Home > Font > Spacing. Select "Condensed", enter a value, click "OK"
Find and ReplaceEdit > ReplaceHome > Editing > Replace
Insert special charactersInsert > Symbol > Special CharactersInsert > Symbols > Symbol > Other Symbols > Special Characters

Once you find out the reason for large spaces between words in Word, you can easily eliminate it. To do this, you need to use the built-in functions of a text editor and tidy up the appearance of the document.

Also you can look thematic video on the topic of the article.

Video - How to remove spaces between words in Word

The question is one of the popular ones. That is why he came to our attention. In addition, the answer to this question will be useful both for students and for other users of the Word program. In this article we will tell you how to remove large spaces in Word, doing it as quickly, simply and without errors as possible.

What can cause large gaps in the text? There can be many reasons. Firstly, this occurs when text copied from the Internet is inserted into a document. In addition, large spaces can also arise due to the carelessness of the user who places several spaces after a word. In our article we will look at several ways to remove large spaces in Word. So let's get started.

Aligning text to width - method No. 1

This method is one of the most popular ways How to remove large spaces in a Word document. This is quite easy to do. First, select the text where there are large spaces - either using the mouse or using the Ctrl + C key combination. When the text is selected, look for the icon called “Fit to Width” on the toolbar, or press Ctrl+J. Alignment of text occurs by aligning it to the left and right edges, adding spacing in those places where it is necessary. After that big problems will disappear in Word.

Putting extra spaces is another reason for large spaces. It will be much easier to get rid of them. First, the user needs to show all hidden signs. To do this, on the toolbar, just find the sign called “Display all signs”. It looks like this:


After clicking this button, all hidden characters will be displayed in the document, and you can remove extra spaces.

Removing the “End of line” sign: method No. 3

If you have justified your text, but the last line of the paragraph doesn't look too good, then this section is for you. Now we will tell you how to put a paragraph in order. Follow the following algorithm:

  1. First you need to make all non-printable characters visible. Click the sign called "Show all signs."
  2. We are looking for the “End of Paragraph” sign; in the document it is represented as a curved arrow.
  3. If such a sign appears at the end of a paragraph, it must be removed. All large spaces at the end of a paragraph in Word will disappear.

Removing extra spaces from the document

If the reason for the appearance of large spaces in the text is text copied from the Internet, then getting rid of them will also not be difficult. To do this, the user must use replace, since removing all the spaces throughout the document will be too time-consuming.

When all non-printable characters are enabled, the user must use the replace function. To do this, press Ctrl+H, then put two spaces in the “Find” field. But the “Replace with” field must be filled with one space. In this case everything double spaces will be automatically replaced with a single space.

By the way, in Word versions 2007, 2010 and 2013, the “Replace” function is located in the “Home” section. On the right side of the line. But in the earlier version, i.e. 2003, it can be found in the Editing section. However, despite different versions– the method for eliminating unnecessary large spaces in a Word document will be almost the same.

Is it possible to avoid adding extra large spaces?

Of course you can. And this will save the user from a lot of problems, because he will not have to “rack his brains” on how to get rid of the hated extra spaces. This is quite easy to do. The user simply needs to make visible all non-printable characters in the document, this is what will allow him to avoid adding unnecessary large spaces.

In our article, we looked at several ways to remove large spaces in Word, suitable for many versions of this text editor. As you already understand, there is nothing complicated about this, you just need to strictly follow the written algorithm of actions. Only in this case the result of the work will not disappoint you, and the process itself will not cause difficulties and hassle. Well, in order not to encounter such a problem, it is better to prevent it. How exactly? We also revealed all the secrets. Take action and you will succeed.