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I set the single space in Word and LaTeX.

But apparently LaTeX is more dense than Word. (Using 11 font in Word, using /singlespacing in LaTeX). It seems like three lines of LaTeX is only equal to 2 lines of Word. Something like that.

What's the correlation for spacing between Word and LaTeX? What if I want to set single space in LaTeX as the effect in Word?

Updated:

I checked wikibook, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Text_Formatting#Font_Styles it seems that LaTeX's normalsize font is little bit smaller than 11pt, and large font is a little bit larger than 11pt. What can I do?

Mensch
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CaptainObvious
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  • Welcome to TeX.sx! On this site, a question should typically revolve around an abstract issue (e.g. "How do I get a double horizontal line in a table?") rather than a concrete application (e.g. "How do I make this table?"). Questions that look like "Please do this complicated thing for me" tend to get closed because they are "too localized". Please try to make your question clear and simple by giving a minimal working example (MWE): you'll stand a greater chance of getting help. – hpesoj626 Oct 22 '12 at 03:50
  • There's a wordlike package. – Gonzalo Medina Oct 22 '12 at 03:55
  • What do you mean with more dense? – azetina Oct 22 '12 at 04:00
  • @azetina edited my question – CaptainObvious Oct 22 '12 at 04:08
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    See also my previous question What does 'double spacing' mean? – Leo Liu Oct 22 '12 at 04:13
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    If you want a font size of 11pt, be sure to specify it as an option to the \documentclass command. Also, be sure to use the exact same fonts for both LaTeX and Word. This may seem obvious, but with an MWE (minimum working example) it's not clear if it's the case. – Mico Oct 22 '12 at 04:14
  • @Mico Thanks. I have trouble setting 11pt as an option to the \documentclass. Because currently it looks like \documentclass[acmtocl,acmnow]{acmtrans2m}. If setting it it \documentclass[acmtocl,acmnow,11pt]{acmtrans2m}. The compiler will report error. What can I do? – CaptainObvious Oct 22 '12 at 04:17
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    Related, perhaps duplicate: Setting a document in MS Word-12pt (12bp). The related posts mentions: "MS Word uses a slightly different version of the unit 'point' (pt) than TeX does". – Werner Oct 22 '12 at 04:27
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    If it has been suggested to use a class like acmtrans2m, then you probably do not need to worry about the formating. – StrongBad Oct 22 '12 at 07:29
  • The difference in the font size is less than 0.46%, so it's negligible in practice. The standard settings for 11pt size is to set text 11/13.6; thus three lines are, from top to bottom, 7pt+13.6pt+13.6pt=34.2pt (7pt is the height of an uppercase letter). This amounts to 34bp (the point used by Word); if this is what two lines of text occupy in Word, it's difficult to think it as "single line spaced": the same 7pb for the uppercase letters would mean a distance between baselines of 27bp, which is more than twice the distance used by TeX. – egreg Oct 22 '12 at 08:51
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    Maybe the issue is with the font. By default LaTeX uses Computer Modern, while Word uses Times (or Calibri),and there is a substantial difference between the size of the two fonts. Thus using a package like mathptmx or newtxtext (and newtxmath) or alternatives should reduce the difference – Guido Oct 22 '12 at 23:49

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You mentioned spacing in your question and I'm not sure to understand you right, but let's try.

For me it seems your problem is that the algorithm of Word for layouting the text is orientated on lines (line for line) while LaTeX looks on the complete paragraph. That must result in different layouting a page in Word or LaTeX (LaTeX has much better results than Word, ever!).

So supposed you use exactly the same font (not possible as you already mentioned) the layout of a page remains different because the layout algorithmns are so different.

I remember there is a German site with two files in Word and LaTeX showing the same text with nearly same layout (I have to search for it and will do it if you want to see this side).

Conclusion:

Word and LaTeX are different programs and results in different page layouts. LaTeX has the better algorithm for layouting and has a good build in typography. With Word you must do the typography by your own.

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Mensch
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  • Why should the different way of dividing a paragraph into lines should make a difference in how the lines are eventually laid out? The difference may be in how the page is built up by stacking lines of text. – egreg Oct 23 '12 at 10:44