Line spacing different for no apparent reason

[greggsewell]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I have a style called Quotes.

It's set to a line spacing of 1.5 lines.

In a 200-plus page document, there are dozens of passages with this style applied.

One paragraph with this style has line spacing that appears to be twice as large as the style calls for.

But when I look at the paragraph palette and compare settings for this paragraph to any other paragraph with this style applied, there are no differences at all.

I feel dumb, but I've searched and cannot find anything different about the two paragraphs.

To fix the problem I set the style to Normal and manually set the font, indentation and spacing the way I needed it.

An hour later, when reviewing the document, I discovered a similar occurrence with just one paragraph in a different style.

Is this an indication that my document is becoming corrupt?

Is there a known fix for this?

I'd love to know what's happening here.

Thanks for your help.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Gregg -

It may simply be a matter of how the styles are interacting based on their
definitions. A bit more info will help...

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I have a style called Quotes.

It's set to a line spacing of 1.5 lines.

What style is this one Based On & what are that style's specs? Is the Quotes
style set to Automatically Update?

In a 200-plus page document, there are dozens of passages with this style
applied.

One paragraph with this style has line spacing that appears to be twice as
large as the style calls for.

Is this content you typed or was it copied from somewhere else?

But when I look at the paragraph palette and compare settings for this
paragraph to any other paragraph with this style applied, there are no
differences at all.

Do you have the non-printing characters (¶) displayed? If not, turn them on
using the button on the Standard toolbar or by keying Command+8. That way
you can better tell whether the "lines" displaying the problem are all a
part of the same paragraph or whether they are actually separate paragraphs.

I feel dumb, but I've searched and cannot find anything different about the
two paragraphs.

Have you used View> Reveal Formatting? If not, try that & click in the
locations where there appears to be a problem - the actual formatting will
be revealed in balloons.

Just because a style name appears in the palette doesn't mean that some
other formatting hasn't been directly applied either intentionally or
accidentally.

To fix the problem I set the style to Normal and manually set the font,
indentation and spacing the way I needed it.

An hour later, when reviewing the document, I discovered a similar occurrence
with just one paragraph in a different style.

Styles are typically based on other styles & all styles are based on Normal
unless you specify otherwise, so the one is established as the Parent & the
one based on it is referred to as the Child. If any of the Parent's
attributes are changed the child will be changed as well if it still shares
the same attribute.

IOW, if the parent & the child both include 1.5 line spacing & the parent
gets changed to double line spacing the child will be updated in the same
way. Those attributes of the child that *differ* from the parent will not be
affected if the parent's attribute is changed - so if the parent is 24 pt &
the child is 14 pt, changing the parent to 18 pt won't cause the child's
font size to change.

Is this an indication that my document is becoming corrupt?

Corruption is certainly a possibility, but I wouldn't jump at that just yet
unless there are other symptoms or unusual behaviors.

Is there a known fix for this?

I don't know that there is a "known fix" because we haven't yet determined
what the actual problem is

I'd love to know what's happening here.

Thanks for your help.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[greggsewell]

First, thank you, Bob, for your response.

To answer your queries:

What style is this one Based On

--------
A style named "body" which I copied from Clive Huggan's document, "Bend Word to Your Will."

I set up my Normal template by copying all of Clive's styles and then altering the ones I use most to suit my workflow.

& what are that style's specs?
--------
FontDefault) + Theme Body, 12 pt, Indent: First line: 0.5", Justified, Line spacing: 1.5 lines, Widow/Orphan control

Is the Quotes style set to Automatically Update?
--------
No.

Is this content you typed or was it copied from somewhere else?

--------
My document was copied from three files sent by the author.

The first thing I did after pasting was do a Select All command and changed everything to the "body" style.

Then I changed headers, subheads, quotes, etc. as needed.

Do you have the non-printing characters (¶) displayed?
--------
No.

If not, turn them on using the button on the Standard toolbar or by keying Command+8. That way
you can better tell whether the "lines" displaying the problem are all a
part of the same paragraph or whether they are actually separate paragraphs.
--------
They are all part of one paragraph.

Have you used View> Reveal Formatting? If not, try that & click in the locations where there appears to be a problem - the actual formatting will be revealed in balloons.
--------
Alas, I've already fixed the problem, so I cannot do this.

Just because a style name appears in the palette doesn't mean that some other formatting hasn't been directly applied either intentionally or
accidentally.
--------
Completely possible.

But I do try to be careful about that.

Styles are typically based on other styles & all styles are based on Normal unless you specify otherwise, so the one is established as the Parent & the one based on it is referred to as the Child. If any of the Parent's attributes are changed the child will be changed as well if it still shares the same attribute.
--------
I understand.

I haven't altered any styles at all in this document.

If I find myself manually changing the parameters of a paragraph in the same way more than a couple of times, I create a new style based on the one I'm manually altering.

IOW, if the parent & the child both include 1.5 line spacing & the parent gets changed to double line spacing the child will be updated in the same
way. Those attributes of the child that *differ* from the parent will not be affected if the parent's attribute is changed - so if the parent is 24 pt & the child is 14 pt, changing the parent to 18 pt won't cause the child's font size to change.

 

[Tim Murray]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I have a style called Quotes.

It's set to a line spacing of 1.5 lines.

One paragraph with this style has line spacing that appears to be twice as
large as the style calls for.

I saw this in PowerPoint quite a bit -- that's why I went back to 2004.
Anyway, select the bad-looking text (final paragraph pilcrow included), press
Ctrl+q and Ctrl+space, and reassign the style you want.

NOTE: Those two Ctrl keystrokes might not be the default; they are what I
have assigned to reset paragraph style and reset character style. I've
forgotten whether I did those myself or not.

 

[Joan RYan]

Trying to type a business letter in word. Spacing is double on the name and address and single on the body of the email. I can't seem to rectify the problem and make all single spaced. Help. Thanks.

 

[Joan RYan]

....Sorry I meant in the body of the letter not email

 

[CyberTaz]

If we knew what version of Word you're using it would easier to guide you to
the right solution, but essentially you are *not* seeing double-spacing. It
is Space After paragraphs. See item #3 on this page for an explanation:

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Word2008Issues.html#DoubleSpacing

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Joan,

Adding to CyberTaz's comment, if the only bother you're having is in the
name-and-address area (i.e., you're comfortable having leading -- blank
space -- after paragraphs), just use Shift-Return at the end of the
name-and-address lines rather than Return.

Clive Huggan
============

 

[CyberTaz]

Good Point -

<snip>

use Shift-Return at the end of the
name-and-address lines rather than Return.

<snip>

In fact, I would have suggested that myself had time not been limited
It's my preferred method for address blocks & other groups of short lines
because it denotes them as a single paragraph... Much easier to deal with.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Freaktoid]

I had this same problem, I was a able to fix it by opening a new document , switching over to printer layout view, going to format and clicking on style. I created a new style, based off the Note level one, where i made 1st paragraph normal , second paragraph as Note level one , and then there was a symbol to bring the lines together and brought them as close as i could. Then after this i switched back to notebook view and everything once again was back in their correct lines. I don't know how this problem came about, or if this will work for everyone, but it definitely worked for me.

 

[John McGhie]

There are always several different ways to skin any given cat in Word.

Just be very careful what you do in a Notebook Layout document.

The internal structure of the document depends upon the styles and depends
on the formatting of the styles all being internally consistent. If they
are not, Word crashes a lot whenever it is editing the document.

So be gentle with it

Cheers

I had this same problem, I was a able to fix it by opening a new document ,
switching over to printer layout view, going to format and clicking on style.
I created a new style, based off the Note level one, where i made 1st
paragraph normal , second paragraph as Note level one , and then there was a
symbol to bring the lines together and brought them as close as i could. Then
after this i switched back to notebook view and everything once again was back
in their correct lines. I don't know how this problem came about, or if this
will work for everyone, but it definitely worked for me.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Guest]

Having a similar problem. For no apparent reason, there are automatic double-spacing rather than single-spacing in a doc. I did try the end of paragraph solution on another ques., but it didn't fix the problem. I'm on a MAC new laptop, and was hoping things would be easier (I'm also technically challenged...)
sue

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

It's not actually double-spacing that is the problem. Word changed the
default to add more space between paragraphs, so that each paragraph
will be single-spaced, but between paragraphs, you get extra space.
Paragraphs are created every time you hit enter.

To change in just this document, select all, go to Format | Paragraph.
Look down to the find the Spacing: After field, and change 10 to 0.

To change this in all documents created from now on, change the Normal
style.

First, select Format | Style. Normal should be selected.

Click on Modify--make sure "add to template" is CHECKED. You'll see a
Format menu in the bottom of the dialog--select Paragraph from it, and
change the Spacing: After setting from 10 to 0.

wrote: