Oh yeah, the tricks are all known, it's just that "make it fit" used to automate that and do it all at once so that you had every factor done as subtly as possible.

And I go for the more subtle changes. My teachers usually require 12pt font, 1" margins, and double spacing. So I use a 12.1 or 12.2 font, 1.2" margins, and 2.2 spacing. It doesn't add much, but sometimes it adds as much as a page, depending on how long the document is