Changing line spacing in Windows 7′s WordPad
Q: I am having trouble with WordPad in Windows 7.
It’s set up to give me two lines between sentences. How can I change it to give me one line between sentences?
A: With Windows 7, Microsoft changed the menus in both Paint and WordPad. Instead of the familiar pull-down menus along the program’s top, the programs now sport a large button-filled bar known as a “ribbon menu.” Some people love the new menus, others hate them. But love ‘em or hate ‘em, they require some figuring out before you can get some work done.
To change the line spacing in WordPad, look for the “line-spacing” button on the menu bar. (The mouse pointer aims for it in the screenshot below.)
When you click the button, a menu appears (left), letting you change the line spacing to meet your needs.
Tip: To see the purpose of any menu button, rest your mouse pointer over it. A box appears, offering an explanation of what that button accomplishes.
Update: But what, you may ask, if you want to remove that blank line that WordPad places between paragraphs? To do that, choose the last option from the line-spacing menu: “Add 10pt space after paragraphs.” That removes the checkmark, telling WordPad to stop placing the extra space between paragraphs.
Tip: To stop WordPad from adding in its blank line after your current paragraph, hold down the Shift key while pressing Enter. WordPad starts the next paragraph immediately after the first, without adding an extra line. That trick comes in handy when creating tables or charts, for example.
One more tip: To change your spacing without bothering with the menus, use some of WordPad’s many keyboard shortcuts:
Ctrl+1 Set single line spacing
Ctrl+2 Set double line spacing
Ctrl+5 Set line spacing to 1.5
Update: If you’re tired of using WordPad’s built-in workaround tools, the HoldKey website offers a small registry tweak program that fixes the line-spacing problem.
Posted: November 12th, 2009 under Windows 7.
Tags: changing line spacing in wordpad, line spacing, wordpad
Comments
Comment from Jan
Time November 16, 2010 at 9:34 am
I think the wordpad of win 7 – 64 is a useless program. I copied the map – programs / accessories — with wordpad in it from my XP version, made a shortcut and pinned it to the taskbar. Works like a sunshine….!
Comment from Ronny Leeuwin
Time November 27, 2010 at 3:26 am
Dear Andy,
How can I make this change of paragraph permanent to disable the add 10 pt space function ? I prefer to press Enter twice if I need more space between paragraphs. I cannot find any button to click to activate the desired change forever. Each time the PC is turned off, the same procedure has to start up.
Comment from Andy Rathbone
Time November 27, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Ronny, I don’t know of a permanent way to disable the 10 pt space function. There’s probably a way to do it by editing the registry, but that’s too advanced for most readers. If you have a friend with a Windows XP PC, try Jan’s tip above. That copies Windows XP’s version of WordPad to Windows 7, which lets you keep the old program’s features.
Comment from kado
Time December 2, 2010 at 9:42 am
The single point spacing between lines is still ridiculously large. The XP pad worked seamlessly. Did they sit down and think – “how can we screw this up”??
Comment from Jim
Time December 3, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Well, my Anti-Virus program just declared my old C-WordPad program to be malware .
So, I thought I would give Windows 7 WordPad another shot.
It’s not looking good so far .
I agree, I HATE automatic, unchangeable preferences.
Once I set it, it should STAY that way until I change it .
What’s so hard about changing the registry ?
Do you actually have some reg data available ?
Providing a .Reg file for the squeamish is a easy, no-brainer solution .
I have over 100 reg tweaks, just to make Windows work as it should .
I’ll take a look to see if it’s easily decipherable .
Thanks for considering this option .
Comment from Andy Rathbone
Time December 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Jim, I don’t have any registry tweaks for WordPad’s line spacing, but please share them here, if you come across them. Thanks!
Comment from Jim
Time December 5, 2010 at 7:23 pm
There doesn’t seem to be any way to attach
or post files here , so I’ll just dump the instructions in one message .
Windows-7 WordPad fix
The newly revamped WordPad has a very annoying trait,
there’s no “Preferences” menu per-se .
Every time you open an old document to edit, or create a new one,
ALL the settings go back to the built-in default settings .
Fortunately, the “Templates System” is still there in the New WordPad .
Here’s a way I found that changes the default Preferences .
1)
Create a new “Rich Text Document” in a blank space on your desktop .
Name the new rtf file : ” New Rich Text Document.rtf ” ,
(this is the normal, default name, so just don’t change the name )
Adjust all the preferences to your liking .
( Once I’m done, I like to hold down the Return key for a couple of seconds,
this will put 30 or 40 invisible blank lines into your new document,
when this is done, you can easily paste stuff into any position on the page )
This will be your new Starting Template for New rtf files .
It also will be the default settings used by WordPad to edit existing files .
So, if you open an existing file, that was made a while back,
regardless of the settings used when that file was made,
your new preferences will be automatically applied to any editing you do .
After your all done, close and save changes,
then, right click on the new rtf file, and go to “Properties” ,
now click on “Read Only” , then “Ok” .
2)
Now comes the tricky part, the guy who originally figured this out must
have had something different about his computer,
his had a folder named “C:\Windows\ShellNew\ ” ,
mine didn’t have that folder, so I had to create a new one,
Windows didn’t like the idea ,
So, just a heads-up, if you don’t already have this folder,
you will have to change some security settings,
this is usually a very confusing process,
even though I’ve done it million times it’s still a big pain in the rear .
I don’t know if this trick will work if you place the Template elsewhere .
Wouldn’t hurt to try, but it might not get a result .
“C:\Windows\ShellNew\” is where you need to Cut and Paste your
new “New Rich Text Document.rtf” file that you just made,
according to the guy that found this solution .
3)
Next,
Make a new “Text Document” ( a txt file ) .
Copy and Paste the following into your new txt file :
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.rtf\ShellNew]
“FileName”=”New Rich Text Document.rtf”
Close and save the file .
Rename it to rtf.txt
Most people have their file extensions hidden, this is the default setting .
To turn on file extensions, open “My Computer” or “Windows Explorer”,
go to “Tools”… “Folder Options”… “View”… ,
Un-Check “Hide Extensions for Known File Types” .
Now you will be able to see, and change,
file extensions everywhere on your computer,
but right now, you just need to change the extension on the
TXT file you just made to rtf.reg
After the new “Template” file,
( New Rich Text Document.rtf , with all preferences set the way you like them )
is successfully moved to C:\Windows\ShellNew\ ,
then execute rtf.reg (double click it) .
Done .
Comment from Holdkey
Time July 26, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Here is a fix for the double line spacing
issue with Wordpad on Win7
Comment from Andy Rathbone
Time July 29, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Thanks for the link to Holdkey. Is that a registry fix for the problem bundled as a freebie program? Have any of you readers tried it?
Comment from jim hunt
Time September 16, 2011 at 3:57 pm
why is 7 word pad space between lines more than vista ?
Comment from Andy Rathbone
Time September 18, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Jim, Windows 7′s version of WordPad contains significant changes from Windows Vista’s version of WordPad. The most obvious is the new ribbon interface replacing the drop-down menus found in Vista’s WordPad.
As for the line spacing change, there’s no way to know whether that’s a bug or a deliberate change on Microsoft’s part.
Comment from Peter
Time December 7, 2009 at 2:21 pm
It would be good to disable the line spacing all together, so that new documents don’t have the spacing between lines…