There may be several reasons why there are large spaces between words in Word. In this article I will tell you about some ways to solve this problem.

Aligning text to width

If your document doesn't require the text to be justified on the page—the first letters of each line are on the same vertical line, as are the last—then you can align all the text to the left. To do this, select the desired fragment with the mouse, or everything printed by pressing Ctrl + A (hereinafter, all key combinations use English letters). Then on the “Home” tab, click on the button "Align text left" or Ctrl+L .

Tab characters

Sometimes tabs can be the cause of large spaces between words. To check whether they are used in the document, you need to enable non-printable characters: click on the icon that looks very similar to Pi. Tab stops in the document are displayed as arrows. If there are any, delete them and add spaces. Spaces in non-printing characters are displayed as a dot: one dot - one space.

If there are a lot of tab characters, you can perform a replacement. Place the cursor at the beginning of the desired fragment. Then we select one tab character, i.e. arrow, and copy it – Ctrl+C; press Ctrl+H and in the window on the “Replace” tab in the “Find” field, place the cursor and press Ctrl+V. In the “Replace with” field, put a space. Click the “Replace All” button. Next, an information window pops up showing the number of replacements performed.

End of line sign

If you have all the text selected in width and cannot be edited in any other way, and the last line of the paragraph is very stretched, then perhaps at the end of this line there is an “End of Paragraph” icon. To begin with, we turn on non-printing characters - “End of paragraph” is displayed as a curved arrow. If you have one at the end of the line, then simply delete it: place the cursor at the end of the last word of the paragraph and press “Delete”.

Spaces

This option is also possible: you copied something from the Internet, but between the words there is not one space, but two or three, so the distance is increased. When non-printing characters are enabled, there should be several black dots between words. Removing them throughout the document takes a long time, so we’ll use a replacement. Press Ctrl+H, put two spaces in the “Find” field, one space in the “Replace” field, click “Replace All”. If necessary, you can put three, then four, etc. in the “Find” field. spaces, and replace them with one.

Hyphenation

If the document allows the use of word wrapping, then the distance between words can be edited in the following way. Select all the text Ctrl+A, go to the tab "Page layout". V "Page Options" Click on the transfer icon and select “Auto”. As a result, hyphens are placed throughout the text, and the distance between words is reduced.

In this article we tried to remove large spaces between words in Word. I hope it worked out for you.

There may be several reasons why there are large spaces between words in Word. In this article I will tell you about some ways to solve this problem.

Aligning text to width

If your document doesn't require the text to be justified on the page—the first letters of each line are on the same vertical line, as are the last—then you can align all the text to the left. To do this, select the desired fragment with the mouse, or everything printed by pressing Ctrl + A (hereinafter, all key combinations use English letters). Then on the “Home” tab, click on the button "Align text left" or Ctrl+L .

Tab characters

Sometimes tabs can be the cause of large spaces between words. To check whether they are used in the document, you need to enable non-printable characters: click on the icon that looks very similar to Pi. Tab stops in the document are displayed as arrows. If there are any, delete them and add spaces. Spaces in non-printing characters are displayed as a dot: one dot - one space.

If there are a lot of tab characters, you can perform a replacement. Place the cursor at the beginning of the desired fragment. Then we select one tab character, i.e. arrow, and copy it – Ctrl+C; press Ctrl+H and in the window on the “Replace” tab in the “Find” field, place the cursor and press Ctrl+V. In the “Replace with” field, put a space. Click the “Replace All” button. Next, an information window pops up showing the number of replacements performed.

End of line sign

If you have all the text selected in width and cannot be edited in any other way, and the last line of the paragraph is very stretched, then perhaps at the end of this line there is an “End of Paragraph” icon. To begin with, we turn on non-printing characters - “End of paragraph” is displayed as a curved arrow. If you have one at the end of the line, then simply delete it: place the cursor at the end of the last word of the paragraph and press “Delete”.

Spaces

This option is also possible: you copied something from the Internet, but between the words there is not one space, but two or three, so the distance is increased. When non-printing characters are enabled, there should be several black dots between words. Removing them throughout the document takes a long time, so we’ll use a replacement. Press Ctrl+H, put two spaces in the “Find” field, one space in the “Replace” field, click “Replace All”. If necessary, you can put three, then four, etc. in the “Find” field. spaces, and replace them with one.

Hyphenation

If the document allows the use of word wrapping, then the distance between words can be edited in the following way. Select all the text Ctrl+A, go to the tab "Page layout". V "Page Options" Click on the transfer icon and select “Auto”. As a result, hyphens are placed throughout the text, and the distance between words is reduced.

In this article we tried to remove large spaces between words in Word. I hope it worked out for you.

05.03.2018

The possibilities of Microsoft Word for working with text are almost limitless. However, users often encounter various problems in the process of formatting documents. One of these is the big problems between words, the search and removal of which will be discussed later.

Removing large spaces in Word

There are many reasons why large spaces appear in the text, but each has its own solution. Below in the article we will talk about all the available options for fixing the problem, in order from the simplest and most obvious to the more complex and relatively rare.

Reason 1: Align to page width

In order to detect large indents in a Word file, the first step is to check the text alignment type. Yes, if selected "Fit to page width", then the beginning and end of the lines in the text will be located at the same level (if viewed vertically). In this case, the text inside the lines will be stretched due to indents of different sizes.

To get rid of such spaces, you just need to change the alignment style to the left or right edge of the page.


If wide spaces are caused by justification, following the steps above will resolve the issue. In the same cases, if it is undesirable to change the alignment type, but large indents in the text appeared precisely because of this style, pay special attention to "Reason 4".

Reason 2: Extra spaces

It is quite possible that the indents in the document are not large at all, but are simply duplicated. That is, where there should be only one space, two or more were placed. Finding out if this is the case and then fixing everything is quite simple. To do this, you need to activate the standard mode for displaying non-printable characters, and then use the search and replace function by text.

This problem most often occurs in Word documents downloaded from the Internet. The program highlights with a wavy blue line any number of indents other than one if they are set between a word and a punctuation mark. Double indents between words are also underlined, but if there are more than two of them, no underlining will be displayed. To detect extra spaces, do the following:

  1. Select the text you want to check for extra spaces.
  2. On the top toolbar in the section "Paragraph"(tab "Home") click on the button "Show all characters", which looks like a symbol "pi". You can also use the keyboard shortcut "CTRL+*".
  3. The text will show all non-printing characters such as spaces, tabs, and the end of paragraphs. The first ones look like a dot located in the middle of the line (in height), and it is to them that you need to pay attention.

    If you find places where there is more than one period between words and/or punctuation marks, the extra characters need to be removed, or rather, replaced with single ones.

  4. After re-selecting the text, click on the button on the toolbar "Replace"(group "Editing"). Alternatively, you can use the keys "CTRL+H".
  5. A small function window will appear on the screen "Find and Replace". In its first line ( "Find") put two spaces, and in the second ( "Replace") - one. The symbols themselves will not be displayed.
  6. Now click on the button below "Replace All" and wait for the search and replace procedure to complete.
  7. In a small window, the program will tell you how many replacements have been made.
    You should not exclude the fact that in the text you selected there could be places where there are not two indentation characters between words, but four (or any larger paired number). In order to find and remove such paired spaces, still in the same notification window, click on the button "Yes"- this will continue the search process.
  8. After the dialog box says that zero replacements have been made (the phrase “We have made several (0) substitutions...”), do not rush to close the window "Find and Replace". Simply move it to the side and recheck the document for any duplicate spaces. If any are found, repeat the search and replace process, adhering to the algorithm described above. Only after there are no more unnecessary characters in the document can you close the dialog box.

All unnecessary padding must be removed. Based on how many dots (indent symbol) you initially saw in the document, in the line "Find", the search tool discussed above, you can specify not two, but, for example, three or more spaces. This will speed up the replacement process if there are really a lot of such indents.

Reason 3: Tab characters

Another possible reason for the appearance of wide indents in a text document is the installation of tab characters (pressing the "TAB") instead of standard spaces. The function will help you remove them "Find and Replace", described above.


If this is what caused the large indents in your document, they will disappear. It is possible that more than one tab character was installed in a row, in which case you will need to either remove the remaining ones manually, or then remove the extra spaces, since two tab characters will be replaced by two spaces.

Reason 4: Presence of the End of Line character

The first reason we looked at for wide whitespace was to align text in a document to the width of the page. Sometimes this style is dictated by formatting requirements, and it is not possible to change it. The last lines of paragraphs with this design style will be stretched from the left to the right edge, and immediately at the end of the line there will be an unprintable character "End of Paragraph". This is exactly what you need to get rid of.


Reason 5: Lack of transfer

The absence of hyphenation in the text itself is not the cause of the problem we are considering. However, when you cannot figure out why there are wide indents in the text, you can try to get rid of them by activating the wrap function. It is important to understand that this solution is acceptable only when adding hyphens does not violate the requirements for document formatting.


This method does not always help, and it is applicable in extremely rare cases, since modern requirements for the design of text documents often do not imply the presence of hyphens in them.

Reason 6: Long Space Character

The last and probably the rarest reason for the appearance of wide indents in the text. Not everyone knows that Word has three different symbols that represent spaces of different sizes - regular, short and long. Perhaps it is the latter that are installed in your document instead of the usual indents that are familiar and used by everyone.

It is worth clarifying that the symbol "Long Space" in fact, it is not so long as to be noticeable, and it can only be added by inserting special characters. But it’s still worth double-checking whether it caused the problem in question.


If it was long spaces that were causing wide indents in your document, they will be replaced with regular spaces and the problem will disappear.

We talked about all the reasons for large gaps in the text and how you can get rid of them. As is clear from the article, in most cases, for these purposes it is enough to activate the mode for displaying hidden characters, and then use the function "Find and Replace".

Many users often encounter such a problem as large spaces between words in Word. Experienced editors know perfectly well what the reason is and how to remove spaces between words in Word, but beginners, when they see this, fall into a stupor, afraid to do something so as not to cause harm.

In this article we will talk about how to remove spaces between words in Word. All the reasons for this phenomenon will be given and ways to eliminate it will be clearly demonstrated. Moreover, there are many of these methods, so everyone will find one that will help him.

Justification

Now we will figure out how to remove the space between words in Word when aligned by width. This reason is first on the list in terms of prevalence. A considerable number of users, when faced with the problem of large spaces, encounter this very problem. But you shouldn’t be afraid, it’s very easy to fix. Literally in a couple of mouse clicks.

The bottom line is that the Word program does not align the text correctly. But it is worth noting that this happens due to the fact that the formatting configurations for that same text were incorrectly set.

There are two ways to deal with this “problem”. The first of these involves changing the location of the text. It is worth noting that this method will only work if the document is formatted correctly. Therefore, it is not suitable for everyone. But it’s still worth highlighting. So, to get rid of large spaces, try simply left-aligning your text. The corresponding option is located in the "Home" tab. If you cannot find it, then use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + L.

But what if it doesn't work? There is a second way - using hot keys. Now let's figure out how to remove the space between words in Word using keys.

The idea is very simple, you need to replace long spaces with short ones. Moreover, a short spacebar is placed not with the corresponding key, as many might think, but with a special combination: Shift + Ctrl + Spacebar. You just need to highlight long spaces one by one and change them to short ones. Now you know how to remove the width between words in Word. Well, we move on.

End of line

Who knows what "End of Line" is? That's right - this is an unprintable character in Word. It appears when you press Shift and Enter. Press this combination, and the Word program will not make a paragraph, but will jump to the next line.

It is noteworthy that if your text alignment is not aligned to the width, then you will not notice the difference, but otherwise those same annoying long spaces will appear. Let's figure out how to remove the space between words in Word in a similar situation.

First, you need to enable the display of non-printable characters. This can be done in the "Home" tab in the "Paragraph" section. You can see the location of this function in the image.

By clicking the button at the end of a line containing long paragraphs, you should see a corresponding “End of Line” sign. It looks like a curved arrow pointing to the left. To get rid of the problem, simply remove this sign. You can do this using both the BackSpace and Delete keys.

Tab character

What is "Tabulation"? This is an option in Word that allows you to structure your text. It is quite significant, but in our case it only creates problems. For those who don't know, this symbol is placed on the Tab key. And the space (long) is visually displayed. Exactly what we don't need.

This problem can be removed in the same way as the "End of Line". Just display the non-printing characters and you will see arrows pointing to the right where the tabs are. All you need to do is highlight this character and press space. This way you will correct the situation. So you have found out the last reason and the last way to remove spaces between words in Word.

Replacing tabs

But what to do if there are too many tab characters in the text? Agree, it’s not an option to replace each of them manually. This can take a huge amount of time, and many will simply lose their nerve. Now let's figure out how to replace all characters at once.

The method is painfully simple. Many people know that Word has a function called text replacement. This is exactly what we will use.

So, highlight the tab character and copy it. After that, open the Find and Replace window. This can be done by pressing Ctrl + H. Now in the "Find" field, insert a tab character, and in the "Replace with" field, enter a space. Click the "Replace All" button.

All the reasons for the appearance of large gaps in the text and all the ways to eliminate them were mentioned above.

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 does not 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 you press the TAB key. 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.

This was the last reason and the last way 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 the 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.