How to Change Line Spacing in Affinity Designer

When working with paragraphs in Affinity Designer, it is essential to know which tools to use to control the position and flow of text within your design. Line spacing often plays a huge role in how the text looks in terms of alignment. So, how can it be changed to get it right?

Line spacing in Affinity Designer can be adjusted from the Paragraph panel. However, for more control over inter-paragraph spacing and formatting, the design can be opened in Affinity Publisher straight from Designer.

If you are working with designs that contain a lot of text, then it’s important to have the margins, alignment, and overall formatting set up in a way that doesn’t take away from the design. Keep reading to find out how to change line spacing in Affinity Designer.

Adjusting Line Spacing in Affinity Designer

Though Affinity Designer excels as a vector graphics editing program, simple edits to text can be made within the software so that your designs can look the way you intend them to. The easiest way to do this is from the Paragraph panel. The Paragraph panel gives users the ability to control different aspects of text within a paragraph.

To access the panel:

  1. Select the text
  2. Click the Paragraph icon from the context toolbar
  3. You can also have the panel show permanently from the View menu located at the top of the screen
  4. Navigate to Studio
  5. Select Paragraph

Now, let’s take a look at the different options available for line spacing.

Using the Paragraph Panel for Line Spacing

Once you’ve gained access to the Paragraph panel, you will see a number of different options for formatting.

They include:

  • First line indent: This is represented by an icon with various lines stacked vertically. All lines are the same size, except for the top line, which is indented on the left. The control the indent that is applied to the first line in the paragraph.
  • Left indent: Represented by an icon with an arrow pointing to a stack of lines to the right, this setting controls the amount of text that will be indented on the left.
  • Right indent: Represented by an icon with a stack of lines on the left and an arrow on the right, this controls the amount of text that will be indented on the right.
  • Space Before Paragraph: This is the icon with a stack of lines with a downward-facing arrow on top. This controls the amount of spacing that precedes a paragraph.
  • Space after paragraph: Represented by an icon with a stack of lines atop an arrow, this controls the amount of spacing that succeeds a paragraph.

You will also see two checkboxes: ‘Sum space before and after’ and ‘ignore space for same styles’. These are used to determine when spacing is applied between paragraphs.

Using the Paragraph Panel for Other Adjustments

Line spacing isn’t the only way to edit the size and formatting of text in Affinity Designer.

The paragraph panel gives users control over a variety of positioning settings, including:

  • Left and right indentations
  • Tab stops
  • Justification
  • Bullets and numbering
  • Style

Changing some of these settings may affect the way the spacing of your paragraph is displayed. For example, tap stops and indentation alter horizontal spacing, while justifications change the gaps between words and letters.

Changing Line Spacing in Affinity Publisher from Affinity Designer

When working in Affinity Designer, you are not confined to the program’s tools. Affinity software is meant to function in tandem, allowing users to effortlessly switch from one program to another when the one you’re presently working in lacks the tool or editing capability your project requires.

Text formatting, for example, is not a Designer’s area of expertise. Affinity Publisher is the best option for formatting and placement.

To open up the document in a different application:

  1. Select the content you would like to edit
  2. Navigate to the File menu
  3. Select Edit in Publisher.
  4. This will open the image in Affinity Publisher, so you can freely edit and format the text.

Once the edits are complete, you can now move back over to Affinity Designer and the image should automatically update since the content is linked.

Final Thoughts

Formatting text can often be one of the most frustrating aspects of working with a design, especially when you can’t get the line spacing right. Hopefully, this article gave you the knowledge you need to edit line spacing in Affinity Designer.

And, as always, don’t forget to utilize Affinity’s other programs if the one you are working in doesn’t have what you need.