Remove double returns, double line spacing, double line breaks in Word 2016

Hi there, in this video we're going to look at removing all these double returns, there's one after this paragraph, and then there's another one to get down to this one, so it's going to look like this when we finish. Let's go and do it.

Now, why do we want to use it? It's because we've set something called the ‘space after’, there's already a gap between the two of these, and it's really easy to consistently go through the whole document and adjust it. You can see, it's just under this little option here called 'Line Spacing', there's one called 'Line Spacing Options', and we've set the spacing after to '8 pts', or at least that's by default, and that's really easy to control on a really long document. 

Controlling double spacing, what a lot of people do is they'll highlight this little guy, this space between, and then go and adjust it. You can do that, you can make it bigger, or make it smaller. The trouble is, if I have to do that over a whole document, if somebody asked me to amend it, first of all, applying it across the whole document takes forever, and if you had to change it, you just say no, because it's too much work, so what you do is you end up having, so leaving the double returns, just say you got one of them, just one there to break it down to the next column and use the 'space after'. If you're looking to get more into 'space after' there's a video I've got earlier in this series, go check that one out.

What I'd like to do is go and remove it; it's pretty easy. You need to be on 'Home', you need to find down this end there's something called 'Find'; yours might be at a slightly different screen, yours might be a little bit tucked up, but this button, eventually you'll see this one called 'Find'. Click on him, use the little drop down arrow, click 'Advanced Find', and what we're going to do is do 'Find and Replace', and that's the thing we're looking for, looking to delete it out of there.  

So, to get those bits in there-- it says 'Find what', you're going to have to go down the bottom that says 'Special', and I want to find 'Paragraph Mark', that's considered a double return, a single return at least, and that is the little bit of code that kind of indicates a paragraph break. What we want to do is we want to find one of them. Actually, I'm copying it and pasting it, so I've got two of them, so when I find two I replace with one. I'm going to go 'Replace all', kick back, relax, and 90 replacements were made. Click 'Close'. Now, I've got a nice consistent document that doesn't have double returns, and it means, now I can go through and adjust my 'space after’ very easy. I can select all of these paragraphs here, go to this option now, go to 'Line Spacing Options', and increase it from '8' up to say, something like '18' just to prove my point. Nice and easy, and consistent.

All right, that's how to remove double line breaks in Word 2016. Let's go on to the next video.