Answer

The Convert Line Breaks Formatting Option in Movable Type allows users to use hard returns in their entries and comments, and have these replaced automatically with paragraph (<p>) and break (<br />) tags.

To turn this feature off automatically for all new entries created in the system, navigate to Settings > New Entry Defaults and look for the Text Formatting option¹.

For existing entries, the setting must be changed individually on the Edit Entry screen for each entry, and then the entry must be saved again to publish the change.

To decrease the spacing rather than turning it off entirely, CSS can be used to control the padding and margin:

p {
margin-top: 10px;
margin-bottom: 3px;
}

¹ In versions prior to 3.2, navigate to Weblog Configuration > Preferences, and look for the Default Text Formatting for New Entries options.