Spacing before and spacing after usually are configured in points (and usually increment by 12 points). Spacing after, which is more commonly used in legal documents than spacing before, is what makes the cursor appear to skip a line when you press the Enter key after typing the text of a paragraph. It’s really spacing between paragraphs, but it is created as an attribute of a paragraph, not by pressing the Enter key. In essence, you can configure paragraphs so that they incorporate extra white space – kind of like a buffer – above and/or below them. Let’s quickly review “ spacing before” and “ spacing after,” since experience has taught me that even long-time Word users aren’t always sure of the meaning of those terms.

And you can do so for multiple paragraphs simply by selecting / highlighting the paragraphs first.

Sometimes, though, it’s convenient to add or remove spacing before or spacing after. The pre-set line spacing choices – 1.0, 1.15, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 – aren’t particularly useful for legal documents (and where standard single and double spacing are appropriate, it’s easy to apply those options with the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl 1 and Ctrl 2). The options are limited to a few pre-set line spacing choices a command that opens the Paragraph dialog and, at the very bottom, context-sensitive commands that alternate among “Remove Spacing Before,” “Add Spacing Before,” “Remove Spacing After,” and “Add Spacing After,” depending on the configuration of the paragraph your cursor is in. However, the Line and Paragraph Spacing drop-down can be useful for a few specific types of formatting. The Paragraph dialog, which provides access to a full range of configuration options including paragraph alignment, indentation, line spacing, before and after spacing, widow and orphan control, tab settings, and more – it’s sort of a “one-stop shop” for paragraph formatting – comes in very handy in most situations. That’s because I typically open the Paragraph dialog when I want to change the line and/or paragraph spacing of document text. In all candor, I actually hadn’t noticed the drop-down until a client pointed it out to me several years ago.

Training clients sometimes ask me about the Line and Paragraph Spacing drop-down in the Paragraph group on the Home tab in Word. The Line and Paragraph Spacing drop-down menu (Word)

Tight paragraph spacing in word