A frequent question in Outlook forums asks how to fix Outlook so that messages aren't double spaced for the recipient. This effect is caused by the HTML coding and is most frequent for recipients using a web-based email client, such as GMail. This is because of the way Outlook creates line breaks in HTML and how browsers or other clients interpret them. In some cases, the message is correctly spaced when received and only double spaced when replied to.
Note: This is not a problem new to Outlook 2007, it was also a problem with older versions when using Word as the editor.
Cause | Solutions | Edit the Template
Cause
When you press Enter while creating HTML email, Outlook inserts a paragraph tag (<p>), so two Enters (for white space between the paragraphs) inserts two <p> tags, which is double spaced when rendered in a browser. If you use Shift+Enter twice, which creates the line break tag (<br>), the message will not look double spaced in a browser. This will look ok in all mail clients.
To see if you are using the <p> or <br> tag when composing messages, press Ctrl+Shift+8 to toggle marks off and on.
Solutions
You have 6 options:
- Use plain text for messages. Plain text will look ok in any and every email client available.
- Press Enter once, not twice, when composing HTML formatted email.
- Press Shift+Enter twice at the end of a paragraph, rather than pressing Enter twice.
- Just ignore it as an inconstancy in the way various applications handle HTML.
- Edit the email template to add '12 points after' in the Normal style.
- Use Search and Replace to replace paragraph symbols (^p) with a manual line break(^l)
My preference is to ignore it in messages – email is an imperfect medium and most people are used to inconstancies such as this. I'm more concerned that I can read messages I recieve, not with how they look.
I often use Shift+Enter when I compose messages for my newsletters or edit the p style in my CSS to add 12 points bottom margin (margin-bottom:12.0pt;).
Use Search & Replace
This suggestion comes from Jim: Do a "replace all" on "caret p" with "caret l".
This works best when the message contains only plain paragraphs – bulleted or numbered lists and other formatting require paragraphs, not line breaks.
Use Search and Replace to replace the paragraph with a manual line break.
- Press Ctrl+H to open the search and replace dialog
- Type ^p in the Find field
- Type ^l in the Replace field (that's lower case L)
- Replace all (Use Replace and Find Next if using formatting that requires paragraphs)
If you press Ctrl+Shift+8 to show formatting marks, you'll see the paragraph marks ( ΒΆ ) are replaced with manual line breaks ( 8 ). Press Ctrl+Shift+8 to toggle the marks off.
Edit the Template
In Outlook 2007:
Close Outlook. (If you get a message that the template is read only, Outlook is not closed.) Locate NormalEmail.dotm and open it for editing. You'll find it in the templates folder at C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates (Vista), To easily access this folder in Windows XP or Vista, paste
%appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\
in the Start search dialog (Vista) or the address bar of Windows Explorer.
- Right click on NormalEmail.dotm and choose Open. This will open the template in Word as a template.
- Right click on the Normal style button in the ribbon and chose Modify.
- Click Format in the lower left and choose Paragraph.
- In the Spacing section, change the After value to 12 points.
- Save and close the template.
Now when you write a new message you'll press enter once and have white space when recipients read the message in any client or web browser. Replies will use the style sheet of the original message.
User Submitted Solutions
These solutions were made by other users:
Dump the stationery, or at least try a different stationery. This is not an cure-all, and changing the style settings of the preferred stationery should have the same effect for default stationery. To change the style setting, click the Change Styles button on the Format Text tab then change the Paragraph spacing, then set it as default.
Another user discovered using RTF message format also eliminates double spacing. I really don’t recommend using RTF formatting, even if you do set Outlook to always convert RTF to HTML for Internet addresses, but if double spacing really bothers someone its worth a try.
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Last reviewed on Jan 11, 2012
11 responses to “Messages are Double Spaced for the Recipient”
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Great explanation. I’ve been wondering about this for years! Thank you for posting.
I only got this unintended double-spacing problem when replying to emails, not when sending new ones.
So on comparing the formats of each (under Format, Paragraph, Indents & Spacing) I found the difference: Spacing Before/After!
New messages were set to 0 (zero) and replies were set to “Auto”.
In a Reply message, I simply changed Spacing Before/After from Auto to 0, then clicked “Set as Default”. Et Voila! My unwanted double-spacing seems gone, gone, gone.
Not sure if there are any lurking downsides to me having done this, but I’ll take the chance. :)
Thanks again Di for getting me to look in the place where the problem/solution turned out to be!
Well, I spoke a bit too soon. :( It turns out that I am in fact getting the double-spacing problem on new emails, but it’s a little bit subtle.
(Note: I still have the settings prevously mentioned as Before/After = 0 pt, and that clearly does NOT fix the problem)
I send a message with single spacing between paragraphs. (I hit Enter twice) And in Outlook Sent Items it looks fine. The message was sent to my Gmail where it looks fine (single spacing).
But the problem begins to show when Gmail sends a reply back to my original email. When it comes back to my Outlook it is now double spaced!
I am really baffled by this. Is Outlook doing some weird non-standard HTML coding?
That’s mostly normal – gmail handles the p and br html tags a little differently. You’ll get the same effect with almost every webmail account. However, here its not double spaced, but it is a little more spacing than i have on the original.
Open a new message. Go to format tab, Change stypes, paragraph – what is it set on? (Outlook 2007 / 2010)
Still have the problem and it’s driving me nuts. Every reply I get from a Gmail user has my text triple spaced… very unprofessional looking!
I’ve looked all over the place, changed various settings, especially within “Normal” and “No Spacing” styles. (e.g. “Don’t add space between paragraphs…”) No luck.
As you suggested (I think), I looked at “Change Styles, Paragraph Spacing” and it says “No Paragraph Space”.
It feels like a styles/template problem and yet I can’t seem to nail the cause.
No way I can hit Shift-Enter instead of Enter, after 30+ yrs! And I’d rather not run some keystroke remapping script to do this for me.
There’s gotta be a fix within OL’10 settings. (OL’03 didn’t have this problem)
I finally FIXED IT!!! …with a workaround… changed the Compose Messages format to RICH TEXT.
Et Voila! No more extra line spacing from OL’10. Yippee!
I just needed to take a look at my old computer’s OL’03, to be reminded that it used Rich Text.
I should be all set now. That is, as long as Microsoft, in it’s infinite wisdom, doesn’t eliminate the RIch Text format option in future builds of Outlook. (hope they’re listening)
RTF is not a good format to use for Internet email – it will work ok for mail sent to other outlook users but not to people who don’t use outlook.
Rich Text seems to work fine, owing to the crucial Message Format option:
Message Format, When sending messages in Rich Text format to Internet recipients: Convert to HTML.
My observation is that this auto-conversion of Rich Text to HTML doesn’t produce the problem with extra line spacing, so in this sense Rich Text works better than using HTML format in the first place.
Sorry I forgot to mention this in my last post.
Northbanker- THANK YOU!! I tried your suggestion and changed Compose Messages to Rich Text but kept the Message Format the same – Convert to HTML. Finally, after long last, we no longer have spacing issues with outside email – even with yahoo and gmail recipients. As a bonus, we can continue to use an HTML-based business card we attach to our signatures.
Simple and effective fix for something that was annoying the heck out out of many people at my office! Thanks again!!
We had the same problem when replying to some emails. It appears this happens when the sender is using a background. I had the offending party set the background to and the problem has gone away.
I have tried the Rich Text option and the spacing is still present in my emails. My system is making me manually change every email I send out. How can I *permanently* change the spacing options in my emails from Before – auto / After – auto to Zero??? It was like this until 2 weeks ago – suddenly something has changed – and i cannot figure out how to get it back!