Where are line spacing options?

[_Tammy_Hnat_]

Hello, I am very new to InDesign, and have done some searching for the answer to this, but must be missing something somewhere. I have a user who placed a document into InDesign. The Word doc was double spaced, and he would like single spacing in his InDesign doc. Is there such an option available? Where is it hiding?? There must be single/double spacing options, right? We are using InDesign CS3.

[Guest]

Wrong.

DTP programmes do not use the single/double spacing concept which is a throwback to typewriters.

Inter-line spacing is controlled by the leading value of the type, and/or additionally by setting a space before/space after value for the paragraphs. You might also be seeing artificially spaced text if it is set to align to the baseline grid, and the leading value is inappropriate for the grid spacing, forcing the type to align to every other grid line.

k

[_Tammy_Hnat_]

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my post, Ken. I know I have a lot to learn because I only understood a few of those words. 🙂 It does answer the question of why I couldn't find a spacing button, though. I'll play around with some of those options you mentioned. Thanks, again!

[Peter Spier]

It's not unusual to see people "fake" double spacing in Word docs by hitting the enter key twice at every line break. Turn on hidden characters to see if that's what's going on, and if it is, you have a bit of work cut out for you.

First, you'll need to identify the real paragraph ends and insert some random character to use as a marker. Use something that will not appear anywhere else in the story, some fancy bullet or something.

Next, open find/change and enter ^p in the find field, and leave the change field blank, then change all, which is going to remove all paragraph breaks (and any style changes along with them).

Now enter the random character you added to mark the paragraph ends in the find field, and ^p in the change field, and change all, and you'll have real paragraphs ready for formatting.

If Dave is watching (or someone else with GREP skills) there might be a way using GREP to do this a bit cleaner, but my guess would be if you've got a word doc with all those line breaks it wasn't styled anyway. :)

Peter

[Peter Spier]

Actually, if you are REALLY LUCKY (one in a gazillion chance) the line breaks were made with soft returns, and the real paragraph breaks with hard returns, in which case you could just use find/change to remove the soft returns, but I'm having trouble envisioning anyone who knows how to use soft returns who doesn't also know how to set spacing in Word.

Peter

[_Tammy_Hnat_]

Hi Peter - thanks for your reply. That is something to look for. This user very well could have been using two returns instead of the double space tool in Word. I'll check it out when we meet today and I see his doc. And, if that's the case, *HE* does have quite a bit of work cut out for him! 🙂 Thanks, again! Tammy

[Guest]

"And, if that's the case, *HE* does have quite a bit of work cut out for him! "

Not necessarily. If he has been hitting return twice it's simple find and replace action to replace ^p^p with ^p. But I doubt if that's the case because to get double line spacing this way he would have to have been treating his computer like a typewriter and hitting return at the end of each line on the screen. And that would very quickly show up in InDesign when you change the measure.

k

[Guest]

Just look at the type specifications. The leading value should be around 110 - 120% of the character size. So 10pt type should have a leading of 11.5 - 12. If it shows as 10pt on 20pt, he has applied double line spacing as a paragraph attribute and Word has just increased the leading accordingly.

All you need to do is change the leading back to (auto) or set a size that suits your document.

k

[_Tammy_Hnat_]

Hi Ken, You have been a great help!! Thanks so much for the tips on leading! I'll definitely remember this one. Have a great day! Tammy

[_Tammy_Hnat_]

Hi Ken, Just wanted to thank you again for explaining "leading." I've had a chance to play around with a document and the leading option, and now understand how it works. Really appreciated your post - it saved me A LOT of time. Tammy :)

[Guest]

Glad you've got it sorted.

k