How to remove all spaces in Word. How to remove extra spaces between words in Word? Removing wide large spaces

Extra spaces are not only a very disturbing sign in documents, but also a sign of inexperience of the person typing the text. Every odd space– this is an additional negative factor for a sloppily decorated Word document. It is enough to change the margin indents or the indentation of the red line so that the seemingly finished text “spreads” into different sides. This can be avoided if you do not enter extra spaces. How to avoid this? Read the first chapter of the Ten Commandments in Word - Don't Insert Extra Spaces. But most often, sloppy text is not created from scratch, but is found on the Internet, for example, in the form of essays, diplomas, etc. What to do? Remove every space manually? No need - Word allows you not only to enter unnecessary things, but also to quickly delete them.

How to remove spaces at the beginning and end of a line

Most often, extra spaces at the beginning of a line replace the indentation of the red line (the first line in a paragraph) for inexperienced users. Instead of spaces in such cases, use the menu Format | Paragraph…, on the Indents and Spacing tab, in the Indent | First Line" select "Indent" and set standard value– 1.27 cm.

To quickly remove everything extra spaces and tabs at the beginning and end of lines, select all text, set alignment to center - spaces will be removed. After this, set the desired alignment, for example, width.

Be careful not to throw off different alignments for different parts text - for example, on the right edge for epigraphs, in the center for headings. In such cases, it is better to replace the space and paragraph mark with a paragraph mark. Select menu Edit | Replace… In the "Find" field, enter a space (click on the space bar). Click the "More" button to expand the dialog. Click the “Special” button and select the menu that appears Paragraph mark. The text “^p” will be added to the Find field. In the "Replace with" field, insert one paragraph mark " ^p ". Click the "Replace All" button. Click again - there may have been triple spaces in the text before the paragraphs.

How to remove extra spaces in text

Extra spaces are added mainly due to the fact that they do not know about non-breaking space, and try to add a lot of spaces to make the letter "g." not separated from the year or city name. By the way, to enter non-breaking space, use Ctrl+Shift+Space– press and hold Ctrl, Shift, press Spacebar and release all keys. Almost the same way continuous hyphen in combinations like “1st”, “A-1” – Ctrl+Shift+Hyphen.

To clear everything away extra spaces throughout the text, select menu Edit | Replace… In the "Find" field, enter two spaces (click on the space bar twice). Be careful - you may have already entered a space in the field earlier. In the Replace With field, enter one space. Click the "Replace All" button. Click again - there may have been triple spaces in the text.

If the situation is absolutely terrible and there are a lot of spaces in the text, first replace five spaces in a row with one space. After getting rid of them, replace double spaces with a single space.

To view invisible characters turn on their display - click the “Non-printable characters” button on the toolbar. Then spaces are displayed with dots “.”, tabulation with an arrow “→”, non-breaking space with a circle “°”, paragraph mark “¶”, line break “”, soft hyphen “¬”, non-breaking hyphen as em dash «-».

– Igor (Administrator)

As part of this note, I will tell you how to remove large spaces between words in Word using several methods and for different situations.

When you edit documents, you may occasionally encounter a situation where large spaces form between words. It usually looks very noticeable and unpleasant. In addition, it is very difficult to read such texts (for example, there are ten words in one line, 4 in the next, then 5, then 2, then 5, and so on)

Note: These methods are relevant for Word 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 and higher.

Extra spaces

It seems that this goes without saying, but it makes sense to check, since even an experienced person can add one or a couple of extra spaces. So highlight big gap, delete it, and then try adding the space again. If the problem is not resolved, then proceed to the next methods.

Justification and non-breaking space

Word supports various options automatic text alignment - left, justified, centered and right. If in the first, third and fourth options such a problem cannot arise, then when aligned to the width long spaces Not unusual.

The point is that there are practically no situations when short words of the same length are used in a paragraph. Therefore, in Word, for width alignment, spaces visually increase (but these are still single spaces, so the previous method will not help).

In such a situation, you can either remove the width alignment, or use the so-called non-breaking space, which will prevent Word from increasing its length. It is installed using the key combination "Ctrl + Shift + Space". However, keep in mind that when justified, the length by which the non-breaking space should have been increased will be proportionally distributed among the rest of the line.

Note: By the way, if you replace all long spaces in any line when aligned to the width, the resulting text in the line will be displayed as if aligned to the left.

Tabulation

The Word text editor supports a special tab character, which, with any alignment option, will take up a lot of space. Installed this symbol the "Tab" key (it also has a picture of two arrows and is usually located to the left and just above the "CapsLock" button). If you switch the editing mode to “display all characters”, then instead of a space, such a character will be indicated by a small arrow to the right. Accordingly, instead of a tab, you just need to put a space.

If there are too many of these characters in the text, then you can use standard tool to replace text. To do this, select the tab character anywhere in the text and copy it. Then press "Ctrl + H". In the window that opens, in the "Find:" field, paste the copied tab character, and in the "Replace with:" field, enter a regular space. Click the "Replace All" button.

Line translation

It is worth knowing that in Word there are two approaches to separating text fragments - this is to start the next paragraph using the "Enter" key and translating the cursor using the "Shift + Enter" key combination. In the second case, the next paragraph is not created, but only the cursor moves to next line. This nuance is especially important if you format paragraph styles ( line spacing And so on).

Accordingly, due to the fact that the "Shift" key is often used, a situation periodically arises when the user presses "Shift + Enter" instead of the usual "Enter". This leads to last line the paragraph is stretched across the width, since the translation of the stem does not create the next paragraph, but only continues the existing one. This problem can be solved simply. Place the cursor after the last word, then delete the character with the "Delete" key (the translation of the cursor is deleted) and press "Enter" (the next paragraph is created).

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 in width, it often creates such long distances between the words that it looks “holey.” 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, word length 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 click Ctrl keys And *. Space characters will appear as dots between words. vertical center lines. 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 the use special application either redundant, irrational, or simply unavailable.

In this case, there is logical question 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.

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 double space to single. 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

Between words, sometimes instead of a regular space there may be a long space or a 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 with regular or short spaces, 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 headings if one or two words are carried over to the 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

If while using the Word program you encounter a problem such as long gaps between words, then this article will help you eliminate these inconveniences. In it we will talk not only about how to remove the gap between words in Word version 10, but also about the reasons for the appearance of such artifacts. We will analyze their nature in detail and indicate three ways to solve them. By the way, the methods below should work on other versions of the program, but perhaps with some nuances.

Justification

The first reason, and also the most common among users, is incorrect width alignment. Now we will analyze everything in detail and demonstrate how to remove the gap between words in Word in this case.

First let's talk about the nature of emergence. Large spaces may appear because the program does not display the contents of the document correctly. That is, the problem is in formatting. However, it is worth noting that the formatting problem directly depends on the user himself. But don’t be afraid, this nuance can be easily corrected. And there are two ways to solve it.

The first method may not work for everyone, but if you don't need the text to be justified, then align it to the left. This should fix the problem. But still this method doesn't always work. If it doesn’t work for you, then pay attention to the method below.

The second method is to manually replace large spaces with short ones. It's easy to do. You need to highlight the large space and press CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR. This combination creates a short space.

"End of line"

So, we learned the first way to remove the gap between words in Word, and also found out the first reason - incorrect width alignment. But if this is not the reason, then the above method is unlikely to help you. Then perhaps your problem is related to the non-printing End of Line character. Let's figure out what to do in this case.

This same "End of Line" sign appears when you press SHIFT+ENTER. In this case, the program does not make a paragraph, but switches to another line, stretching the previous one across the entire width. Because of this, long gaps appear.

To fix this “problem”, you must initially enable the display of invisible characters. This is done by pressing the corresponding button in the program. You can see its location in the image below.

Turn on display, all invisible characters will appear in your text. We are only interested in one - a curved arrow pointing to the left (the same as on the ENTER key). Now you need to remove it. Once you do this, the text will become normal.

So we figured out how to remove the gap between words in Word if you need text in width.

Non-printing Tab character

The problem may also lie in another non-printing character - the "Tab". This character is entered when pressing TAB keys. Let's figure out how to remove the gap between words in Word when faced with this problem.

Just like last time, you will need to enable the display of invisible characters. Just now pay attention to the arrow symbol pointing to the right - this is the tab sign. This time you don't need to delete it, but replace it with a regular space. To do this, highlight the character and press SPACEBAR. By performing these manipulations with all tab characters, you will fix the problem.

It was last reason And last method, how to remove large spaces between words in Word. But what if there are a lot of these symbols throughout the text? After all, few people want to remove them all manually. Now let's talk about this.

Quickly replace gaps between words

Everyone probably knows about the function in the Word program called “Replace”. This is what we will use. First, open its window. This is done on top panel or by pressing CTRL+H. The window we need will appear in front of you with two fields for entering text: “Find” and “Replace”. As you might guess, you need to place a tab character in the “Find” field. To do this, turn on the display of invisible characters in Word and copy the tab character and paste them into the “Find” field. And in the second field, enter a simple SPACE.

Once you have made all the preparations, feel free to click “Replace All”. After this, all unnecessary characters in the document will be replaced, and you will no longer see a large space between words.

The article presented all the ways to remove the gap between words in Word. However, they are not interconnected in any way, so if you decide to fix this problem, use all three methods, one of them will help in any way.