How to Fix Weird Spacing Between Words in Word

Weird gaps between words in Word almost always come from one of four things: justified alignment, extra typed spaces, tab characters, or letter spacing that was expanded in the Font dialog box. The fastest fix for most documents is to click in the paragraph and choose Home > Paragraph group > Align Left (or press Ctrl+L). If the gaps are still there, turn on Show/Hide ¶ to see what is actually sitting between the words, then use the matching fix below.

Applies to: Word for Microsoft 365, Word 2024, Word 2021, Word 2019 and Word 2016 for Windows, with notes for Word for Mac. Checked against Microsoft Support on October 7, 2026.

Find out what is causing the gaps

Before you change anything, look at the hidden formatting. Word can show the characters that normally stay invisible, and the symbol you see in the gap tells you which fix you need.

1. Open the document and go to the Home tab.
2. In the Paragraph group, select Show/Hide ¶, or press Ctrl+Shift+8. Formatting marks appear on the screen. They never print.
3. Look closely at a gap that looks wrong and compare it with this list.

• One dot, but a wide gap, and the paragraph lines up with both margins: the paragraph is justified. Word adds space between words so each line runs from the left margin to the right margin.
• Two or more dots in a row: extra spaces were typed or pasted in. Each dot is one space.
• An arrow: a tab character is sitting where a space should be.
• Single dots, but the letters inside the words also look spread out: character spacing has been expanded, or the text has been stretched with the Scale setting.
• A line break symbol at the end of a stretched line: the line ends with a manual line break (Shift+Enter) inside a justified paragraph.

Select Show/Hide ¶ again when you are done to hide the marks.

Fix gaps caused by justified text

Justified alignment is the most common reason for uneven spacing. When a line holds only a few long words, Word has to spread them across the full width of the line, which leaves large holes. Narrow columns, tables and text boxes make this worse because each line holds fewer words. Switching the paragraph to left alignment gives every gap a normal single space and leaves a ragged right edge instead.

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph with the gaps. To fix several paragraphs, select them all, or press Ctrl+A to select the whole document.
2. Go to the Home tab.
3. In the Paragraph group, select Align Left, or press Ctrl+L. Alignment is a paragraph setting, so the whole paragraph changes at once.
4. Check the result. The words should now sit one normal space apart. If you want the justified look back, select Justify in the same group or press Ctrl+J, and use the tips in the next section to reduce the gaps instead.

Microsoft describes each alignment button in its guide to aligning or justifying text in Word.

In Word for Mac the buttons are in the same place, under Home > Paragraph, but Microsoft labels them Align Text Left and Justify Text.

Keep justified text but reduce the gaps

Some documents, such as newsletters, books and reports with a house style, need justified text. You can keep it and still make the spacing look more even.

• Turn on automatic hyphenation. On the Layout tab, select the arrow next to Hyphenation and choose Automatic. Word can then split long words at the end of a line, so less space has to be added between words. Review the result, because some layouts look worse with many hyphenated lines. You can limit them in Hyphenation Options with Limit consecutive hyphens. Our guide to turning on automatic hyphenation in Word walks through it.
• Give the text more room. Wider columns and margins put more words on each line, which spreads the extra space across more gaps. Change margins on the Layout tab with Margins.
• Edit the worst lines. A long word, URL or file name near the end of a line often causes the widest gap. Rewording a sentence or moving a long term can fix a single bad line quickly.
• Use nonbreaking spaces sparingly. A nonbreaking space (Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar) keeps two words together on one line, which is useful for things like “10 kg”. Do not replace every space in a paragraph with one, because that gives Word fewer places to break lines and can make the gaps worse.

For more justified-text options, see our article on removing space between words in justified Word text.

Remove double spaces with Replace

If Show/Hide ¶ shows two or more dots between words, the gap is made of real space characters. Deleting them one by one works for a few, but Replace cleans up the whole document. Save the document first so you have a clean copy to go back to.

1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, select Replace, or press Ctrl+H. The Find and Replace dialog box opens.
2. Click in the Find what box and press the Spacebar twice. The box looks empty, but it now holds two spaces.
3. Click in the Replace with box and press the Spacebar once.
4. Select Find Next and Replace a few times to check the matches, then select Replace All.
5. Select Replace All again until no double spaces are left. Each pass halves a long run of spaces, so a run of four spaces needs two passes.

If you deliberately used two spaces somewhere, such as after periods in a style that requires it, check those places with Find Next before you choose Replace All.

Replace tabs that are acting as spaces

An arrow between two words means a tab character. Tabs jump to the next tab stop, so the gap changes width depending on where the word falls on the line. Click just after the arrow, press Backspace, and type a single space. Leave tabs alone when they line up a list, a table of contents or columns of figures on purpose, because removing them would break that alignment.

Reset expanded or stretched letter spacing

If the letters inside each word look spread apart, not just the gaps between words, the text probably has expanded character spacing or a horizontal scale above 100 percent. This often happens when text is copied from another document or a template.

1. Select the affected text.
2. On the Home tab, select the small Font dialog box launcher in the corner of the Font group, or press Ctrl+D.
3. Open the Advanced tab.
4. In the Spacing box, change Expanded or Condensed back to the default setting.
5. Set the Scale box to 100%. Values above 100% stretch letters and values below 100% squeeze them.
6. Select OK.

A quicker reset for selected text is Ctrl+Spacebar, which removes manual character formatting, or Clear All Formatting in the Font group on the Home tab. Both remove other manual formatting such as bold or italics too, so use them only when that is acceptable.

The same Advanced tab has a Kerning for fonts check box. Kerning only adjusts the space between certain pairs of letters at larger sizes, so it will not fix wide gaps between words. Microsoft covers these Advanced tab settings in Change the spaces between text in Word.

Fix a stretched line that ends in a line break

In a justified paragraph, a line that ends with a manual line break (inserted with Shift+Enter) is treated like a full line, so Word stretches its few words across the whole width. With Show/Hide ¶ turned on, you will see the line break symbol at the end of the stretched line.

• Simplest fix: click just before the line break symbol, press Delete, and press Enter instead. A normal paragraph break ends the paragraph, and the last line of a justified paragraph is aligned left.
• Keep the line break: Word has a layout compatibility option that stops it expanding the spaces on a line that ends with Shift+Return. In Word for Windows, select File > Options > Advanced, find the Layout options for section, choose the document in its list, and turn on the option that mentions Shift+Return. Choosing a single document there keeps the change out of your other files.

Stop pasted text from bringing odd spacing

Text copied from web pages, PDFs and emails often brings its own fonts, spacing and stray characters with it. Pasting plain text avoids most of that.

• Press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste text only, or paste normally and then select the Paste Options button that appears next to the text and choose Keep Text Only.
• To make plain text the default, select File > Options > Advanced, and in Cut, copy, and paste set Pasting from other programs to Keep Text Only.
• In the same section, the Settings button next to Use smart cut and paste includes Adjust sentence and word spacing automatically, which helps Word avoid leaving double or missing spaces when you cut and paste words.

Check that the fix worked or undo it

Turn on Show/Hide ¶ one more time. Every gap between words should show a single dot, with no arrows, and the line lengths should look natural. If a change made things worse, press Ctrl+Z right away to undo it.

Troubleshooting

The gaps are between lines or paragraphs, not words

Vertical gaps come from paragraph spacing, line spacing or empty paragraphs, not from word spacing, so the fixes above will not change them. Our guide on how to remove extra space in Word covers those settings.

Dots stay visible after turning off Show/Hide

Word can be set to always show some marks. Select File > Options > Display and clear Spaces and Tab characters under Always show these formatting marks on the screen.

Replace finds nothing, but the gaps are still wide

Your gaps are not made of double spaces. Check the alignment first, then the character spacing on the Font dialog’s Advanced tab, then look for tab arrows or line break symbols.

Only one font looks wrong

Fonts differ in how wide they draw a space. Select the text and try a common font such as Calibri or Times New Roman. If the spacing looks normal, the original font was the cause.

The buttons look different or are missing

If a button such as Clear All Formatting is not visible on a compact ribbon, look for the More button (three dots). On a Mac, use the Align Text Left and Justify Text labels mentioned above; the Windows keyboard shortcuts in this guide do not apply.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Word put big spaces between words?

Usually because the paragraph is justified. Word stretches the space between words so both edges line up with the margins, and lines with few or long words get the widest gaps.

How do I fix spacing between words in the whole document at once?

Press Ctrl+A to select everything, then press Ctrl+L for left alignment. Follow up with Replace to turn double spaces into single spaces.

Will Align Left change anything else in my document?

It changes only alignment. Fonts, sizes, line spacing and indents stay the same, although line breaks may move because each line now holds a natural amount of text.

Is word spacing the same as line spacing?

No. Word spacing is the horizontal gap between words on a line. Line spacing is the vertical distance between lines, set in the Paragraph settings.

Can I set an exact width for the space between words?

Word has no single setting for word-gap width. The Font dialog’s Spacing and By boxes change the spacing of the selected characters, so selecting only a space and expanding or condensing it changes that one gap. It is a fiddly fix best kept for a single line.

Why does the last line of my justified paragraph look stretched?

Normally the last line of a justified paragraph is aligned left. If it is stretched, the line probably ends with a manual line break instead of a paragraph break; replace it with Enter as described above.

Once the spacing looks right, save the document. If you share it as a PDF, export it after the fix so the cleaned-up spacing is what readers see.

Related: How to set multiple tabs in Word.

Related: How to reduce the gap between lines in Word.

Related: how to adjust spacing in Word.