Paragraph and Line Spacing in Pages

If you are in the habit of putting a blank line between paragraphs in Pages, you should learn to use paragraph spacing instead. You can also manage the spacing between lines with a variety of options. Paragraph and line spacing can be set on a per-paragraph basis.

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Video Transcript: So let's talk about line spacing and paragraphs spacing in Pages. I see this a lot when people are using word processors. They want to have some division between their paragraphs. So they put a blank line between the paragraphs. For instance the paragraphs would really be like that but they just add the extra line in. So every paragraph here has an extra line. But that's not the best way to do it. Let me show you the best way.
Say I have no extra lines between any of these paragraphs. I'm going to select them all and go to Format. Under Format I can go under Spacing here and there's Before Paragraph and After Paragraph. So I can add a certain number of points. Let's say 10 points between the paragraphs. You can see it looks similar but there's no extra line here. I'm here at the end of this sentence. I forward arrow once and I'm at the beginning of the next one. If I add a new paragraph I didn't have to add an extra line there. Best of all I have complete control over the spacing. I can select All again and I can decide I want a little more spacing or I want a little less spacing. Adding Before Paragraph or After Paragraph spacing is the best was to get divisions between your paragraphs. 
Now in addition to that you may want to change the line spacing as well. They're kind of related items. I can select All here and you can see under Spacing I've got Lines. I can increase and say I want 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. You can see that the lines themselves, even inside of paragraphs, change. I can also set it to be At Least, Exactly, or Between. So, for instance, I can say At Least and a certain number of points. Why At Least? Well, if I have different font sizes in there it'll make sure that if I've got small fonts there is still going to be at least 16 points. But if it's a larger font it's still going to expand that. So, for instance, here if I were to change this one paragraph and make it say a very large text you see that it actually is larger line spacing there because it's a larger font. But it's going to be at least 16 points. 
So you can do Exactly. At exactly 16 points, let me select All and change it to exactly 16, now if I were to increase the font size here you can see it's all squished together because it's going to be 16 points line spacing even though it's 30 point text there. 
You also can do Between when means it's going to put a certain number of points between each line. So zero would be normal. Actually one is the minimum. You can do two, you can do three. But if I were to increase the font size here it would still have that many points between each line. So this allows you to do it. 
Of course you can do that on a paragraph by paragraph basis. So I'm just undoing here at the beginning. I can say I want this paragraph to have bigger line spacing. This paragraph to use At Least line spacing. This paragraph to use Exactly line spacing. Each one of these, you can see, as you select the paragraph changes it here.
The same thing is true with paragraph spacing. So if I wanted to say these three paragraphs here have a little more space after them I can increase the paragraph spacing. There's 20 points after these. But that was what I had selected. These paragraphs have 10 points after it. So you can do it on a paragraph by paragraph basis. So if you want a little more division between this paragraph and the next paragraph you can simply increase the space after that paragraph.

Comments: 2 Responses to “Paragraph and Line Spacing in Pages”

nick

5 years ago

Gary: how does Pages detect where the paragraph ends? I'm guessing it looks for the Return code?

Gary Rosenzweig

nick: Yes, when you press Return while typing, it inserts a return code in the text. That is a paragraph break.

Comments Closed.

Paragraph and Line Spacing in Pages

Comments: 2 Responses to “Paragraph and Line Spacing in Pages”

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