Assumption University provides free Microsoft Word desktop via our portal, which is the best tool for building ATS-friendly, visually appealing résumés. Online tools like Word Web or Google Docs often shift spacing/lines, frustrating reviews and submissions.
Lines: Your Skim-Friendly Secret
Have you ever wondered why some resumes look so clean and easy to scan, while others feel like a wall of text? It comes down to smart design choices, and I don’t mean using Canva.
Adding thin horizontal lines under section headers helps with readability. Recruiters spend just 6-10 seconds skimming your resume, so lines help them quickly find your relevant experiences and education. This information comes from proven UX research on visual hierarchy. Simple lines chunk information, limit wall-text fatigue, and make your resume way more skim-friendly.
Do Lines Break ATS Systems? Nope.
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are text parsers. These systems love words and simple formatting. A thin line, like typing the dash button three times and hitting Enter in Microsoft Word, reads as a simple rule, not a graphic. It passes right through.
Images, however, are a big no-no. Logos, icons, charts, or even a line inserted as a PNG/JPG get ignored or mess up the layout.
The Google Docs Trap
This is why Google Docs isn’t preferable. When you insert a horizontal line (Insert → Horizontal line), it’s treated more like a self-contained graphic or object. That’s why it often adds noticeable vertical space above and below, even if you don’t want it.
Microsoft Word desktop handles it perfectly: the — → Enter line is a built-in formatting rule (a “horizontal line” or border-style element). It’s essentially a thin border attached to the document structure, not a separate object, so it stays tight between lines and doesn’t push things around.
Desktop Word is the gold standard for résumé precision. No other platform matches its control over the exact spacing, lines, margins, and layout recruiters expect.
