Email is one of the primary mediums that many professionals, organizations, and businesses use to communicate with people and other entities. It’s also a technology that enables individuals to receive messages from contacts, agencies, websites, newsletters, and many others. All this is to say that it’s important to have the ability to format emails well and read messages comfortably.
Aside from choosing the right words, it’s essential to set the appropriate line spacing when writing emails. On the other hand, it’s great to have options for changing line spacing in the inbox and email content view. Thankfully, Gmail offers a few options, and there are several workarounds to adjust this text element. And this article will explain how to change the line spacing in Gmail on Mac; please read on.
What Are The Reasons To Change Line Spacing In Gmail?
Line spacing is an important thing in email composition. It can make the text or email content either easy or hard to read. And when done right, it can improve the message’s appearance, which will entice people to read it from the subject to the footer. Having suitable line spacing is also a good way to start an email professionally. A reason for this is that proper indentation and formatting are expected in emails relating to academic and corporate purposes.
If an email’s line spacing is adjusted, that email will appear better looking and more thought-out than if unchanged on the recipient’s end. Gmail always connects sentences even when separated with periods or spaces, which makes the message look like a single paragraph. But if the line spacing is suitable, the email will appear like a document (and end professionally), and long emails (like newsletter entries) will be easy to read.
Having enough line spacing is also important to make the email list easy to browse. On Gmail, there are three inbox density choices, namely Default, Comfortable, and Compact. The Default and Comfortable options both provide enough line spacing between emails, with Default showing file names being the only difference. On the other hand, the Compact density view cuts the line spacing almost in half, which is perfect for small displays. And having these choices (or being able to adjust inbox line spacing) is beneficial, as people have different preferences and computer screen sizes.
Paragraph Breaks Vs. Line Breaks
“Line break” is the term that refers to the new line after a line of text. A word processor or text editor (either in normal or wrapped view) will automatically generate a new line once the current line can no longer accept characters. If a new line is created, it doesn’t automatically mean that a new sentence will start; it can also mean that the last sentence from the previous line will need more space to continue.
On the other hand, as the name suggests, “paragraph break” refers to the new line after a paragraph. Unlike line breaks, a user will have to press “return” on the keyboard to make a paragraph break when writing regular or cold emails. Moreover, as it ends a group of text and starts a new one, creating a paragraph break means a new sentence will begin. And typically, paragraph breaks are larger in size (or taller) than line breaks to improve readability while keeping related texts organized.
Adjusting Line Spacing When Composing Emails
Having the ability to adjust line spaces in emails is indeed beneficial in many ways. Unfortunately, Gmail doesn’t have a dedicated feature or at least a shortcut for adjusting line spacing. However, it’s still possible by trying different workarounds, like the ones below:
Manually add a space after every sentence
In most cases, an empty line (or the space that a sentence is supposed to occupy) can still look like a line break. Accordingly, it’s also possible to adjust the line spacing of text when composing emails by simply clicking the “return” key:
1. Open the official Gmail website and wait for the inbox to load.
2. Click the “Compose” button on the left main menu pane.
3. Type some words or a sentence and then press the “return” key on the keyboard twice.
4. Type a new sentence or a few words on the current line.
5. Repeat the process for the rest of the email content.
6. Once done, click the “Send” button to send the email.
Adjust the font size of an empty line
Again, an empty line is a space created by skipping a line before writing a new sentence. On Gmail, this space will, by default, appear to have the same size as a line break on the reader’s end. However, its size (or height) can still be adjusted by using this simple Gmail text formatting option:
1. Launch the Gmail site and wait for the inbox to load.
2. Click the “Compose” button on the left main menu pane.
3. Type some words or a sentence and then press the “return” key on the keyboard twice.
4. Type a new sentence or a few words on the current line.
5. Hover the mouse over the empty line above and double-click it.
6. Click the “Formatting options” icon at the bottom.
7. Press the “Size” icon on the tiny pop-up and then choose a font size.
8. Once done, click the “Send” button to send the email.
Compose emails in Google Docs
Google Docs is a free online word processing application that offers many text formatting options. And for this reason, one can use it to adjust line spacing when composing emails in Gmail:
1. Visit the “docs.google.com” URL and create a new document.
2. In the Docs file, click the “Line and paragraph spacing” icon in the toolbar.
3. Choose a line space size from the pop-up and click it.
4. Click the blank page and type the email content.
5. Once done, press “command + a” and then “command + c” on the keyboard to copy the content.
6. Go to the Gmail site and click the “Compose” button on the main menu.
7. Click the empty email body input field and press “command + v” on the keyboard.
8. Once the content appears in the input field, click the “Send” button to send the email.
Adjusting Line Spacing In The Inbox
Aside from the emails and texts that a Gmail user writes, the inbox (message list) and especially incoming emails also use line spacing. And two of the few ways to change line spacing in these views are as follows:
Change Gmail inbox density view
On Gmail, the inbox is the most important section or part of the interface. And thankfully, its email display density is customizable-users can choose from Default, Comfortable, or Compact view. Each of the three options applies different line or email spacing, and one can try toggling these options by following this process:
1. Visit the official Gmail website and wait for the inbox to load.
2. Click the “Settings” icon on top of the inbox.
3. Press the radio button before the “Default” text to choose an inbox line spacing that shows file names.
4. Click the radio button before the “Comfortable” text to choose an inbox line spacing that hides file names.
5. Press the radio button before the “Compact” text to choose a tight inbox line spacing.
Use Boxysuite’s Reader Mode feature
Unfortunately, Gmail doesn’t provide an option to change the line spacing of texts when viewing emails. But thankfully, there is an app called Boxysuite–and it offers the Reader Mode feature, which makes reading emails comfortable even without changing line spacing:
1. After creating an account and installing Boxysuite, open the Boxy for Gmail app.
2. Choose and open an email from the inbox.
3. Click the “Reader Mode” icon or the two diagonal arrows that face each other.
4. The main menu and top bar will now be collapsed, and the email content will appear in the center.
Final Words
After reading the entire article, you likely now know how to adjust line spacing in Gmail on Mac. However, if you still want to improve your inbox experience further, you should check out Boxysuite-the first and only native Gmail macOS app.
Unlike browsers, Boxysuite provides a clean and productive working environment for Gmail, Google Calendar, Keep, and Contacts. Using it, you can try the line spacing in Gmail options discussed earlier, especially the Reader Mode feature, for a comfortable email reading experience. You’ll also enjoy helpful and exclusive features such as Email Tracking Detection, Task Managers Integration, Multiple Accounts Support, Desktop Alerts, and many more.
Clearly, Boxysuite is the best Gmail app for the Mac, and you’ll surely love and benefit from it. Improve your Gmail experience by trying Boxysuite for free today!
