Carriage returns vs. line breaks - help please.

J

Jacinda Romy

I seem to be having difficulty when I use Word as my email editor. To
make a new paragraph I hit enter twice and to just go to the next line
I hit enter once. The problem is that when I send this email to
friends, they see either 2 spaces or 1 space. The only way I can
refrain from making a space is by doing a line break (shift enter).

Is there any way that I can set up Word 2003 so it continues to look
the same when I hit enter once or twice but hitting it one time equals
a line break and two times equals a carriage return? Does this make
sense? This would be greatly appreciated if anyone can help me with
this.

Thanking you in advance,
Jacinda R.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Don't press Enter at the end of each line. Instead, let Word wrap the text
naturally. Press Enter only at the end of a paragraph. Your email client
will insert line breaks as needed, inserting two lines breaks for every
paragraph break. If you want the text in Word to have the appearance of a
blank line between paragraphs, press Ctrl+0 to add 12 points Space Before.
This will not affect the way the mail client treats the text.
 
J

Jacinda Romy

Hi Suzanne,

Thank you for your reply. I'm afraid I wasn't clear enough. I do
indeed let Word wrap the text naturally. My issue is with the
paragraph break. Visually, if I hit enter once, it gives me what
looks like a line break; to my recipients, it is a paragraph break.
When I hit enter twice, I get what looks like a paragraph break but
ends up actually being 2 paragraph breaks to my recipients.

I've set my default email style to now give me a 12 point drop when I
hit enter and I'm getting used to shift-enter for the line breaks but
I'm unable to set my reply and forward style. No matter what I do it
does not save. I've actually confirmed that it is dictated by the
_sender's_ settings as I replied to an email I sent myself and it
worked fine but replying to others' emails (who did not use Wordmail
as their email client) did not give the desired results.

I'm not sure why MS has done this. It's frustrating that when
Wordmail is set to its default settings when I hit enter once, to me
it looks like a line break but to anyone I send it to it looks like a
paragraph break. When I hit enter twice to create a "new paragraph"
for me I'm actually inadvertently creating 2 paragraph breaks for my
poor recipients and the formatting they receive looks ridiculous.
Surely MS didn't mean to do this?

So I can get used to hitting shift-enter for line breaks but is there
some way to keep or adjust my style settings for replies and forwards?
I feel that I am so close yet so far away.

Thanks for any help provided,
Jacinda.
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Thank you for your reply. I'm afraid I wasn't clear enough. I do
indeed let Word wrap the text naturally.
Click to expand...

Then why are you entering line breaks at all? I'm confused.
I'm not sure why MS has done this. It's frustrating that when
Wordmail is set to its default settings when I hit enter once, to me
it looks like a line break but to anyone I send it to it looks like a
paragraph break. When I hit enter twice to create a "new paragraph"
for me I'm actually inadvertently creating 2 paragraph breaks for my
poor recipients and the formatting they receive looks ridiculous.
Surely MS didn't mean to do this?
Click to expand...

No, they did mean to. Because hitting enter once *is* a paragraph break, so
of course it will look like a paragraph break to everyone else. Word does
not want you to use an empty paragraph to create the appearance of space, it
wants you to use Space Before or Space After. A paragraph is a paragraph,
empty or not.
 
J

Jacinda Romy

Then why are you entering line breaks at all? I'm confused.
Click to expand...

Occasionally I would like the formatting of my email to be in such a
way that I need a line break as opposed to a full paragraph. For
instance, sometimes I would like to just make a quick underlined
headline with text one line below it or after my closing I would like
to sign my name only one line below, etc. It's just a formatting
thing and I'm now getting used to doing a shift-enter on the not so
frequent occasion that this is required.
No, they did mean to. Because hitting enter once *is* a paragraph break, so
of course it will look like a paragraph break to everyone else. Word does
not want you to use an empty paragraph to create the appearance of space, it
wants you to use Space Before or Space After. A paragraph is a paragraph,
empty or not.
Click to expand...

OK, point well taken. I do use space after now and it works like a
charm but only for new emails I create. No matter what I try, I am
unable to make emails that I respond to take this format
automatically. I'm forced to format each one individually. I do have
to ask though, why is the default of Word not to make a space at a
paragraph break? Isn't that old school? I mean, if I send an email
to someone on Hotmail, if I only did one paragraph break they'll
actually see a space but as a Word user I won't. Either way, I've
solved it as best as I can by using space after.

Thanks for your help and patience with me.
 
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