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First, I have noticed, with Word 2010 (this did not happen in Word 2003), that the space between words is not even. Some words appear much too close together, both in print on and screen. I use Times New Roman, font 12.

Second, I had the following line in Times New Roman, Font 12 with 1" margins on 8.5" x 11" page, left aligned.

pending against her in the Xxxxx Municipal Court related to the auto accident she had on March

I wanted the date to all be on the same line so I attempted to adjust the right margin in that paragraph so the it would force the word "March" onto the next line. Instead, Word automatically condensed the word "March" and kept it on the same line. When I adjusted the margin just a little more, it did wrap to the next line. But I was surprised to see that it AUTOMATICALLY ADJUSTED the condensing of the word. However, when I went to the condensing and scaling feature dialog box, it said "100%" and "normal."

My questions are:
1. Is it just Times New Roman that does this automatically?
2. How can I get even spaces between words in this font?
3. Can I stop it from automatically condensing?

What I have read so far, people are talking about left or right "justifying." I believe this is incorrect terminology. "Justify" is when both left & right are straight. I believe the correct terminology is left and right aligned. These only "align" on one side. And the alignment does not effect the issue.

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  • 2
    Rather than adjusting the margin to keep the date together, consider using a sticky space ctrl-shift-space or hyphen ctrl-shift-hyphen
    – Tog
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 20:05
  • Isn't this a problem with kerning and not justification?
    – user3463
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 20:20

3 Answers 3

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1. Is it just Times New Roman that does this automatically?
2. How can I get even spaces between words in this font?
3. Can I stop it from automatically condensing?

So far as I know: 1. No, 2. You can't and 3. No.

I believe the correct terminology is left and right aligned.

Not according to Adobe

alignment
The positioning of text within the page margins. Alignment can be flush left, flush right, justified, or centered. Flush left and flush right are sometimes referred to as left justified and right justified.

(my emphasis)

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File, Options, Advanced - Display setting - check "Optimize character positioning for layout rather than readability".

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  • Thank you so much!! Note that my actual problem was that the formatting marks for "spaces" were too close to the words and were affecting the readability. The setting here solves that problem as well.
    – Nat
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 4:41
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If your text is justified (i.e. with a straight edges on both sides of the paragraph, rather than a ragged edge) then Word has to adjust spacing between words, to keep the right-hand edge straight. And, Word will adjust the spacing as you change margins or add/delete words, again to keep that edge straight.

If you select Align left, Center or Align right the spacing should be even.

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