Have you ever picked up a manual and immediately put it back down because it looked too hard to read? Chances are, what you were reacting to was a lack of white space. In publishing, pages with too little white space are said to look “gray.” I prefer to describe them as having wall-to-wall text. Just as wall-to-wall carpeting covers the entire floor with a uniform surface that all blends together, wall-to-wall text means nothing stands out. It’s hard for readers to get their bearings without white space to help “chunk” the text. It’s also physically hard to read a page with no white space to rest the eyes.
White space can help the reader mentally organize the information as well. Usually a shift from one section to the next of equal importance is signaled by a line or two of white space. For example, the space between paragraphs in this tip is a use of this kind of “vertical” white space. A shift from one level to another is sometimes signaled by “horizontal” white space. For example, a bulleted or numbered list is usually indented a few spaces. The indention indicates that the list is a sub-part of the section rather than a new section altogether.
It’s tempting to try to reduce costs by packing as much onto every page as possible, but ignoring the need for white space is a false economy. After all, if nobody reads the manual because it looks too forbidding, all the cost is wasted! Give your readers a (literal) break—properly used white space will make your manual more inviting to read and easier to follow.