Line spacing is the amount of space above and below a paragraph. _________________________

space above & belowElegant emphasis

If you hadn’t fig­ured it out yet, I’m a big fan of white space. On the out­side edge of the page (see page mar­gins). Be­tween cap­i­tal let­ters (see let­terspac­ing). Within ta­ble cells (see ta­bles). Be­tween para­graphs (see space be­tween para­graphs).

And now, above and be­low a head­ing, as a form of em­pha­sis. To show you what I mean, let me ask you some­thing. DO YOU FIND THIS TO BE AN INVIT­ING FORM OF EMPHASIS?

Or do you pre­fer this?

Well, there you have it.

Space above and be­low works on the page for the same rea­son a dra­matic pause works when you’re talk­ing. You draw a lis­tener’s at­ten­tion through con­trast. Loud­ness is an ef­fec­tive form of con­trast. But so is silence.

Like­wise with the writ­ten word. For­mat­ting tools like point size, color, and bold or italic have a role to play. But care­less ty­pog­ra­phers mate them in­dis­crim­i­nately, breed­ing noise. Space above and be­low gives you em­pha­sis with­out adding a sin­gle mark to the page.

How to set space above and below

WordRight-click in the text and se­lect Paragraph → Indents and Spacing. Un­der Spacing, in the boxes next to Before and After, en­ter the measurements.

PagesView → Show Toolbar (or op­tion + ⌘ + t) → Format but­ton → Style pane → un­der Spacing, in the boxes la­beled Before Paragraph and After Paragraph, en­ter the measurements.

CSSUse the mar­gin-top and mar­gin-bot­tom properties

How much space to add is a judg­ment call. Se­man­ti­cally, head­ings re­late to the text that fol­lows, not the text be­fore. Thus you’ll prob­a­bly want the space be­low to be smaller than the space above so the head­ing is vi­su­ally closer to the text it introduces.

There is an up­per limit. For in­stance, on a web­site, you wouldn’t want to add so much space be­fore a head­ing that it dis­ap­pears be­low the bot­tom of the browser.

by the way

• If you’re al­ready us­ing space be­tween para­graphs, the space you add around a head­ing should be larger, to cre­ate a distinction.

You can set the amount of spacing above and below paragraphs.

• Setting Paragraph Spacing Above and Below
• How to Set Paragraph Spacing Above and Below
• What’s Next?

[Menu Proxy — Headings — Online — Depth3 ]

How to Set Paragraph Spacing Above and Below

1. Open the stylesheet you want to modify or create a new one.

2. Complete one of the following sets of steps, depending on whether you want to use the Simplified view or Advanced view in the Stylesheet Editor.

   • Simplified The Simplified view displays styles in a grid view and is often best for brand new users.

     This view provides an easy way to apply properties to styles, with format options available from a toolbar and dialogs (similar to the way one would use an interface such as Microsoft Word). In some cases, only the most common property options are available in the Simplified view (e.g., font, letter/word spacing, paragraph alignment/indentation, autonumbering format, borders, background). One advantage of the Simplified view is that you can apply a property to multiple styles at the same time. You can also click a check box to hide the properties in the editor, allowing you to see only the styles.

   • Advanced The Advanced view displays styles in a tree structure, and despite the name, is user friendly for authors of all levels.

     For the properties, you can toggle between a grouped display and an alphabetical display. The Advanced view of the Stylesheet Editor lets you edit more settings than are available in the Simplified view. In addition, the Advanced view lets you see and apply settings to multiple mediums and media queries at the same time.

   Warning Mediums can be used if you want to use one group of settings for online output types and another group of settings for print-based output types. For example, you might use the default medium for your online outputs and the print medium for your print outputs.  From the Medium drop-down in the Stylesheet Editor, make sure the proper medium is selected before you begin. In the Advanced view, you can open multiple mediums at once; you just need to look at the title at the top of the medium pane and make sure you are working in the correct one. If you are not using stylesheet mediums for your different outputs or if you want all mediums to have the same settings, just leave the medium set to default and continue. Please note that Contributor remembers the last medium that you used when working in the stylesheet, so it may or may not be the one that you want to use the next time around.

   If Using Simplified View

   1. In the local toolbar, make sure the first button displays
      
      (which means that the Simplified view is currently shown in the editor). If the button displays
      
      instead, then click it.
   2. In the upper-left corner of the Stylesheet Editor, click in the drop-down field and select
      
      .
   3. Select the appropriate paragraph style. For example, you can select the parent p tag, or you can select a class that you may have created for that tag (e.g., p.Tip, p.Note).
   4. In the local toolbar of the editor, click
      
      . The Properties dialog opens.
   5. Select the Paragraph tab.
   6. In the Before field, click in the upper-right corner and select Length.
   7. Enter a number in the field and use the down arrow in the lower-right corner to select a unit of measurement. See Units of Measurement. This is the amount of space that will be added above the paragraph.
   8. In the After field, click in the upper-right corner and select Length.
   9. Enter a number in the field and use the down arrow in the lower-right corner to select a unit of measurement. See Units of Measurement. This is the amount of space that will be added below the paragraph.
   10. In the Properties dialog, click OK.

   If Using Advanced View

   1. In the local toolbar, make sure the first button displays
      
      . If the button displays
      
      instead, then click it.
   2. In the upper-left corner of the Stylesheet Editor, click in the drop-down field and select
      
      .
   3. Select the appropriate paragraph style. For example, you can select the parent p tag, or you can select a class that you may have created for that tag (e.g., p.Tip, p.Note).
   4. From the Show drop-down list on the upper-right side of the editor, select
      
      .
   5. (Optional) You can use the toggle button in the local toolbar to show properties below in a group view
      
      or an alphabetical view
      
      .
   6. If you are using the group view, expand the Box group.
   7. To the right of margin-bottom, click
      
      and set the amount of space below the paragraph. When you are finished, click OK.
   8. To the right of margin-top, click
      
      and set the amount of space above the paragraph. When you are finished, click OK.
3. Click
   
   to save your work.

Note This feature is not supported for MadCap Lingo review package (LIREV) files.

Note You cannot use stylesheets for this feature in the Review (Full Registered) workflow.

Note Different browsers may treat margin and padding settings differently. For example, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox honor padding settings more than they honor margin settings. If you were to set a left margin at, say, 1 inch, Internet Explorer 7 would show it that way. However, in order to get the same results in Internet Explorer 8 or Firefox, you would also need to set the left padding at 1 inch.

What’s Next?

After editing a style, you can apply it to content in a topic or snippet. See Applying Styles to Content.

Is line spacing The amount of space above and below a paragraph?

What is the line spacing within paragraphs?

Where is line and paragraph spacing?

What is a spacing line?