How to Double Space Text in Google Docs

Why Double Spacing Still Matters

While most modern digital content is written with single spacing for maximum readability on screens, double spacing remains a strict requirement in academic and professional publishing. If you are writing a university essay using APA or MLA formatting, submitting a manuscript to a publisher, or drafting a legal contract that requires room for physical annotations, double spacing your text is mandatory.

Double spacing simply inserts a full blank line of height between every line of text you type. This makes dense academic paragraphs much easier to read and leaves ample room for professors or editors to print the document and write notes in red pen between your sentences.

By default, Google Docs uses a custom 1.15 line spacing, which is slightly wider than traditional single spacing, but not nearly wide enough for academic requirements. Fortunately, changing to true double spacing takes only a few seconds.

How to Double Space an Entire Document

If you are just starting a new essay, you should set the line spacing before you even begin typing. If you have already finished writing the document, you must highlight the text first before applying the change.

1. Open your document in Google Docs.
2. If you have already written the text, highlight everything. (The fastest way to do this is to press Ctrl + A on Windows or Cmd + A on a Mac).
3. Look at the main toolbar at the top of the screen (where you change the font and text size).
4. Click the Line & paragraph spacing icon. (It looks like three horizontal lines with an up-and-down arrow next to them, located just to the right of the alignment buttons).
5. A dropdown menu will appear showing the current spacing (usually 1.15).
6. Click on Double.

The text will instantly expand, pushing your lines further apart and likely adding several pages to your total document length.

How to Double Space Only a Specific Paragraph

You do not have to apply double spacing to the entire document. If you are writing a standard single-spaced report but need to include a specific double-spaced block quote, you can target individual paragraphs.

1. Click anywhere inside the specific paragraph you want to change. (You do not even need to highlight the whole paragraph; simply placing your blinking cursor inside it is enough).
2. Click the Line & paragraph spacing icon on the toolbar.
3. Select Double.

Only that specific paragraph will expand, leaving the rest of the document untouched.

How to Make Double Spacing the Permanent Default

If you are a university student and every single essay you write for the next four years requires double spacing, it is incredibly annoying to manually change this setting every time you create a new document.

You can force Google Docs to use double spacing as the default for all future documents.

1. Open a blank document and change the line spacing to Double using the steps above.
2. Type a few random words, then highlight them.
3. Click on the Format menu at the very top of the screen.
4. Hover over Paragraph styles.
5. Hover over Normal text.
6. Click Update ‘Normal text’ to match.

This tells the current document that “Normal” text should always be double-spaced. Now, you need to save this as your universal default.

1. Click the Format menu again.
2. Hover over Paragraph styles.
3. Hover over Options at the very bottom of the sub-menu.
4. Click Save as my default styles.

From now on, every time you click “File > New Document,” Google Docs will automatically set the spacing to Double before you even type the first word.