Excessive line spacing problem in some documents

[VVK]

I had received these word documents from someone else. The font used is
mostly Arial size 11. However, the spaces between the lines were excessively
big, the same size as for Arial 12 (if I change the size of some words to
size 12 for example, the spacing remains the same, this is usually not the
case).

I have gone into Format -> paragraphs, where all the spacings are at 0 pts.
Line spacing is at "single". If I force it to "exactly", it only decreases in
size at font 9, but then inter-lines spacing is too small and there's
overlapping. Besides that, to keep the document clean, I'd rather avoid this
sort of tweaking.

Strangely enough, if I do a copy/special paste/unformatted into a new word
document, then the problem disappears: I get the "correct" line spacing
again. Having to do this with all the documents would be too demanding
however. And since I want to print some of the documents, I don't want the
excess space as it leads to a waste of paper, among other things.

Do you have any ideas as to what the problem might be and how to solve it?
Something with the options perhaps? Though I have compared the boxes ticked
in "preferences" for both a "good" document and the one with the problems,
and they appear to be the same.

I am using Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac, though the same problem seems to be
present on a pc.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Since copying to a new document fixes the problem, most likely there
is some corruption in the documents. Note that the actual source of
the corruption might be a template. For information on fixing
corrupted documents and templates, see:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm .

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It might also have something to do with the Compatibility Options in the
original doc. There are some that affect line spacing.

 

[Stefan Blom]

But those compatitility options seem to decrease spacing rather than
increase it, which was the OP's problem.

 

[Stefan Blom]

To clarify: The compatibility options appear to be designed to reduce
spacing. The OP's problem, on the other hand, seems to be that there
is too much of spacing.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The OP's problem is that there is more spacing in one document than in
another. That could also be read as meaning that there is less spacing in
one document than in another.

 

[Stefan Blom]

True.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

The OP's problem is that there is more spacing in one document than in
another. That could also be read as meaning that there is less spacing in
one document than in another.