Temporarily increase line spacing

Question

How do I temporarily increase line spacing? I have some text on my title page:

\begin{center}
{ \Large \textbf{The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With
a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So} }
\end{center}

I'm finding that the line spacing here is too small, but it's fine elsewhere in the document. How can I make the spacing bigger for just this piece of text?

Answer 1

Simply end the paragraph before closing the group associated to \Large so the corresponding \baselineskip will be applied; you can do this by adding \par:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\Large\textbf{The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With
a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So}
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\Large\textbf{The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With
a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So}\par
\end{center}

\end{document}

Here's a comparison of both results:

I removed the outer braces since they are not necessary, as the center environment already forms a group.

If you want to have more control over the spacing, you could use the second argument of \fontsize (the first argument gives the font size); a little example:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\fontsize{15pt}{15pt}\selectfont\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\fontsize{15pt}{18pt}\selectfont\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\fontsize{15pt}{30pt}\selectfont\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\end{document}

producing now:

Another option, not requiring you to explicitly know the font size, is to change the factor in the mandatory argument of \linespread:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\linespread{1}\Large\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\linespread{0.8}\Large\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\linespread{2}\Large\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\end{document}

Yet another option is a redefinition of \baselinestretch; the following code will produce the same result illustrated just above:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{center}
\renewcommand\baselinestretch{1}\Large\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\renewcommand\baselinestretch{0.8}\Large\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\renewcommand\baselinestretch{2}\Large\bfseries The Great Thesis About Some Very Great Things Indeed With a Pretty Long Title That Will Probably Be Split Between at Least Two Lines
Or So
\end{center}

\end{document}

Finally, there's the setspace package which offers you a series of commands and environments to change "in a sensible way" the value of \baselineskip.

Answer 2

that text is set with normal linespacing with a large font, you need to ensure the end of the pargraph is in the scope of the size change. Remove the brace at the start and end of the environment.