Google Docs Fundamentals

Google Docs Fundamentals
Block Paragraphs
Let’s begin by setting our normal text style. Select a font
and font size for your body text. In my example I’ll stay
with Arial 11 point font. Most people use Times New
Roman or Georgia 12 point font. This font and size is
easy to read. Once you’ve updated the body text font
and size, select update normal text to match.
Let’s work on the paragraph. Go to the menu and select
format. Go down the list of options to line spacing. In
the options menu for line spacing, select custom spacing.
A line spacing customization box will open with options
to change the spacing before or after paragraphs. In the
box that reads ‘after’, enter the number 6.
Why six? We set our font size to 12 points. If we were
to press the enter key twice we would have a space of
12 points plus some additional space above and below
the line so we don’t crowd the letters like g or q, which
have descenders. The tails that make the letter g and
the letter q are descenders because they go below
the imaginary line where all the other letters sit. That
leaves a large space between paragraphs. If we enter
the number 6, we are telling the word processor to use
6 points instead of 12 points for a line once we hit the
return key. When we do this there is still space used by
the font for descenders, and enough space between
paragraphs to know there are separate paragraphs.
Without going into a lot of detail that’s the basic reason
for setting this paragraph styling option.
After you type the number 6, click the ‘apply’ button.
Type a few lines of text for a paragraph and press the
enter key once. Type a few more lines for the next paragraph.
Notice the spacing between paragraphs. Google
Doc styles does not keep this information as part of the
normal text style. The good news is that if you create
this style in a document it’s automatically applied it to
all the text in the document.
11
Digital Maestro