If you're one of the 500 million people who use Microsoft Word, do you often find yourself accidentally adding the odd double space when writing your SEO articles or web content? In many cases you may not even realise it, but double spaces can make text look slightly awkward, and is technically an error.
There are three ways of dealing with this problem.
The first method is to remove the space bar key from your keyboard completely.
The only drawback from this is that of course you then won't be able to type any spaces at all.
The second method is to stop typing at the end of every word, take a deep breath, lightly tap the space bar, pause again, double check you only have a single space and then carry on typing.
This is a good method if your social diary is empty and you're looking for ways of filling the long empty hours of nothing.
The third method is to use a feature within Microsoft Word that will help you to root out and remove all double spaces, replacing them with single spaces.
Of course, this method itself could be done two ways - either using the software's built in 'Find and Replace' tool, but this can be a little fiddly, so here's a method that will help you to instantly remove any accidental double spaces, replacing them with single spaces throughout an entire document with a single keystroke.
The secret is that we're going to record what's known as a macro.
A macro is simply a recorded sequence of events that the computer will carry out when you either click a button or press a keyboard shortcut.
1.
To record a macro we'll need to make sure that the 'Developer Tab' is displayed in the toolbar ribbon at the top of the program.
If it isn't then simply click on the Office logo at the top left corner, then click 'Word Options'.
In the 'Popular' tab you'll find an option to display the Developer Tab in the toolbar ribbon.
2.
Click on the 'Developer Tab' heading at the top of the screen to bring up the Developer Tools and select 'Record Macro'.
A small panel will open up offering you the option of assigning this macro to either the toolbar or a keyboard shortcut.
For this tutorial we'll link it to a keyboard shortcut so that whenever we press this shortcut our macro will run.
Click the button with a picture of a keyboard on it.
3.
We're now asked to press the keyboard shortcut we'd like to use.
Let's use Ctrl+Space, which means holding down the Control button on our keyboard and then pressing the Space Bar.
The shortcut should appear in the window, and when it does, just press the button labelled 'Assign' and then 'Close'.
4.
At this point you'll notice that the mouse pointer has changed into a small cassette symbol (which is interesting in itself - do you remember when people used to use cassettes? Gosh Microsoft are fully up to date aren't they!) Effectively what this means is that everything we do at this point is being recorded.
Don't worry - it's not recording how long it takes us to do anything, only the sequence of events.
5.
The first thing to do is to move the text cursor to the beginning of the article.
To do this press Ctrl+Home.
6.
Next we need to bring up the Find & Replace tool - simply press Ctrl+H 7.
In the Find & Replace panel you'll see two text boxes - one for the text to find, and one underneath for the text we wish to replace it with.
In the top box type two spaces, and in the lower box type a single space.
Next click the Replace All button.
This will replace all double spaces with single spaces.
8.
Once it's finished replacing any double spaces with single spaces, close the Find & Replace window.
For a finishing touch let's move the text cursor back down to the bottom of our article by pressing Ctrl+End.
9.
That's it - we've recorded all the events we need, so let's stop the recording.
At the top of the screen in the Developer Tab you'll see a button labelled 'Stop Recording' - just press this.
Congratulations - you have now recorded a macro which you can use in any future document, SEO article or web content article you write.
Once you've finished writing your article just press Ctrl+Space and instantly all of your double spaces will be converted to single spaces in the blink of an eye.
It may have taken you a couple of minutes to set up, but it will end up being an easy and simple time saver that will help improve your formatting in the future.
Professional SEO article writers and web content developers often use a whole raft of macros and shortcuts for improving both the accuracy of their content as well as the speed of development.