"Hanging letters" cut off in table

[John F.H.]

Using Word 2003. I have very limited space in a Word table, where the rows
must be 0.09 in height, and the font must be Ariel 7. The hanging portion of
lower-case letters, such as g, j, and y, are being cut off at the bottom.
I've tried "raising" the font, aligning the cell to the top, even using
superscript with a larger font size. I still cannot get the lettering to
press right up against the top of the cell, even though I've set the top of
the cell's margin to 0. I try increasing the bottom margin in the cell but
it still won't budge.

Is there some way to vertically justify text in a table cell so those
hanging letters won't get cut off? Auto-fit contents doesn't help. The
physical space in the cell seems to allow for more than enough room, but Word
insists on maintaining some sort of gap between the top of the letters and
the top of the cell...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If 0.09 is inches, then this row height is simply not enough for 7-pt Arial.
One thing you can do that will help slightly is to set the paragraph line
spacing to 7 points. But descenders will still be cut off. You can use
6-point Arial with 6-point line spacing and recover the descenders, but this
is pretty much an insane requirement, as the text is going to be too small
to read. Unless you're in the insurance industry or the legal field, why the
fine print?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[John F.H.]

Thanks, Suzanne! Your post put me on the right track. I switched to 6.5 font
(can't go any lower) with 6.5 line-spacing, and the descenders look much
better.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

"Can't go any lower" as in, "am not permitted to"? You certainly *can*: Word
can format text from 1 point to 1,638 points, in half-point increments.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org