Why Does the Line Spacing Suddenly Increase When Changing Font Size from 12 to 14?


Common Experience

Many users may have encountered this issue when editing documents in Word.
Many users may encounter this issue when editing documents in Word.

Reason Behind the Issue

The primary reason for this phenomenon is that Word's default setting aligns text to grid lines.
The primary cause is Word's default setting that aligns (snaps) text to the document grid.

When you increase the font size from 12 to 14, the line spacing adjusts significantly to ensure that the text aligns properly with the grid.
When you increase the font size from 12 to 14, line spacing adjusts significantly to ensure the text aligns correctly with the grid.

Viewing the Grid Lines

To see this effect, you can enable grid lines in your Word document by going to the View menu and checking the "Gridlines" option.
To see this effect, open Word's View menu and check the 'Gridlines' option to enable the grid.

Resolving the Issue

If you want to resolve this issue and prevent the line spacing from increasing so dramatically, you need to turn off the "Align to Grid" feature.
If you want to fix this and prevent large increases in line spacing, you need to turn off the 'Align to grid' feature.

Steps to Turn Off "Align to Grid"

  1. Select the paragraph that you want to adjust.
    Select the paragraph(s) you want to adjust.
  2. Click on the small icon located in the bottom right corner of the Paragraph menu.
    Click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Paragraph menu.
  3. In the dialog box that appears, look for the spacing options.
    In the dialog that appears, look for the spacing options.
  4. Uncheck the box that says "Align to Grid when document gridlines are set."
    Uncheck the 'Align to grid when document grid is defined' option.

Final Note

After making this change, you should notice that the line spacing behaves more consistently when changing font sizes.
After making this change, you should find that line spacing behaves more consistently when you change font sizes.

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