[Tex/LaTex] baselinestretch outside of LaTeX preamble

line-spacing

What is the difference, in LaTeX's head, between these two documents:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{2.0}
\lipsum[2]
\end{document}

…and…

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{2.0}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[2]
\end{document}

The first doesn't result in a double spaced document, I feel it should. Is it only possible to set \baselinestretch in the preamble, or can it be changed part way through a document?

(Note: I'm using the setspace package for double spacing, I'm curious mostly as to the behavior of \baselinestretch here…)

Best Answer

You just need to use \selectfont after you change \baselinestretch in the first example.