The Spacing Shift
When you create a new document in Google Docs, the software applies a default “Normal text” style. This default style often includes automatic paragraph spacing, meaning it silently adds a few points of empty white space either before or after every single paragraph you type. If you press the Enter key to drop to a new line, you might notice a larger gap than a standard single-line return would create. While this looks nice for standard essays, it is incredibly frustrating if you are trying to create a tightly packed list, format a code block, or design a document where you need absolute, manual control over vertical line spacing.
Removing Automatic Space Before/After Paragraphs
To ensure your lines sit exactly where you expect them to and stop Google Docs from automatically adjusting the vertical spacing between paragraphs, you must remove the custom spacing rules.
Open your Google Docs document. Highlight the text that is exhibiting the unwanted gaps, or highlight the entire document (Ctrl+A / Cmd+A) if you want to apply this globally. Look at the toolbar at the top of the screen and locate the Line & paragraph spacing icon (it looks like three horizontal lines with an up and down arrow next to it). Click this icon. In the dropdown menu, look at the bottom section. If you see options that say Remove space before paragraph or Remove space after paragraph, click them. (If they say “Add space,” the automatic spacing is already off). To prevent this from happening in future documents, change the spacing to your liking, then go to Format > Paragraph styles > Normal text > Update ‘Normal text’ to match, and finally Format > Paragraph styles > Options > Save as my default styles.