Word also has a special feature for changing the spacing between paragraphs. To improve the appearance and clarity of the text, the line spacing after the last line of a paragraph should be larger than the spacing within the paragraph. This keeps the paragraph together from a purely visual standpoint. In Word, you can insert the spacing either before or after the paragraph—or both.
Once again, you can do this under “Line and paragraph spacing” in Word on the “Home” tab, where you have the option of inserting (and removing) additional spacing or using the “Line spacing options...” Then enter a font size to set the distance between paragraphs.
If you switch to the second tab in the options dialog box (“Line and Page Breaks”), you have additional pagination options:
- Widow/orphan control: This function prevents a single line of a paragraph from appearing at the top or bottom of a page.
- Keep with next: If you select this option, Word treats this paragraph and the next one as a single unit.
- Keep lines together: This function ensures that the paragraph is not split between two pages and always appears as a complete unit on the next page.
- Page break before: This function inserts a page break before the paragraph, meaning the paragraph is always at the top of the page.