line spacing

[Morley Greenberg]

In the office word 19998 package the default line spacing is single, yet
when I type and try to print it comes out greater than the single line
spacing. It seems the only way I can get single spacing is to reformat using
Format>Paragraph>exact...yet in my old version of word 5.1 the single
spacing works perfectly fine. Can someone explain what is going on. I use a
mac powerbook with system OS 9.0?

 

[Klaus Linke]

In the office word 19998 package the default line spacing is
single, yet when I type and try to print it comes out greater
than the single line spacing. It seems the only way I can get
single spacing is to reformat using Format>Paragraph>exact...
yet in my old version of word 5.1 the single spacing works
perfectly fine. Can someone explain what is going on. I use
a mac powerbook with system OS 9.0?

Hi Morley,

Which font are you using?
This might be caused by the new fonts that contain a lot more characters.
If that's the explanation, the line spacing should be smaller with some
old, small fonts.

The "automatic" line spacing makes sure that there is room for the largest
descenders/ascenders (plus a bit of white space), and in the new, large
fonts there are more characters that go far down below the base line, or up
above the size of capital letters.
And some fonts have a larger line spacing "built into them" than others,
even if they don't have large ascenders/descenders.

If you use mixed fonts in the same paragraph (say, text with symbols from
some symbol font), line spacing will be uneven (and ugly).

That seems the most likely explanation of what you see.

Maybe there is also a difference in how Word 5.1 treated single line
spacing (haven't checked), or a difference in printer drivers might be
responsible for some small difference.

As you already discovered, the only good work-around is to specify the line
spacing (of the styles) exactly (at about 120% of the font size... or a
little less if the lines are short.).

Regards,
Klaus

 

[John McGhie]

"Single" means "Set to the height requested by the font designer for the
largest character on the line."

For most modern fonts, that's 120 per cent of the nominal font height.

Some older fonts had different metrics. Word has not changed: but the later
versions are using later versions of some fonts.

However, it is more likely that you are confusing "line" spacing and
"paragraph" spacing. In addition to a line height, a Word paragraph can
have space after and space before. So in a paragraph with a line spacing of
single, a 12 point Times New Roman font and 6 points before and four points
after, there will be 14 points between the baseline of each text line, and a
further ten points between each paragraph.

Cheers

In the office word 19998 package the default line spacing is single, yet
when I type and try to print it comes out greater than the single line
spacing. It seems the only way I can get single spacing is to reformat using
Format>Paragraph>exact...yet in my old version of word 5.1 the single
spacing works perfectly fine. Can someone explain what is going on. I use a
mac powerbook with system OS 9.0?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

In addition to a line height, a Word paragraph can
have space after and space before. So in a paragraph with a line spacing of
single, a 12 point Times New Roman font and 6 points before and four points
after, there will be 14 points between the baseline of each text line, and a
further ten points between each paragraph.

I think we've been over that one recently, no? There will actually be a
further 6 points, not 10 points, between paragraphs, plus 4 points above the
very first paragraph. Word takes the greater of the required "space after"
the upper paragraph and "space before" the lower paragraph of two adjacent
paragraphs. In this case, where the paragraph style is the same for the two
paragraphs, the greater is the 6 points after the upper paragraph, so that's
what rules, not the sum of the two. A little OT for the current discussion,
but still... (Try it out, and you'll see.) There may be some preference
which can alter this behavior, but I don't know where it might be.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I think we've been over that one recently, no? There will actually be a
further 6 points, not 10 points, between paragraphs, plus 4 points above the
very first paragraph. Word takes the greater of the required "space after"
the upper paragraph and "space before" the lower paragraph of two adjacent
paragraphs. In this case, where the paragraph style is the same for the two
paragraphs, the greater is the 6 points after the upper paragraph, so that's
what rules, not the sum of the two. A little OT for the current discussion,
but still... (Try it out, and you'll see.) There may be some preference
which can alter this behavior, but I don't know where it might be.

Found it: If Word/Preferences/Compatibility/Don't use HTML paragraph
autospacing is turned on then you do get the sum of space after par 1 and
space before par 2. Suitably obscure for this forum. ;-)

Now, John (or anyone): have you any idea why displaying only the greater of
space before/after is considered to be "HTML paragraph autospacing", and why
it suddenly became the default in Word 2000/X and later versions (including
and 2004)? A bit of fiddling with the Compatibility popup shows that up to
and including Word 97/98 it did display the sum of after + before, and then
in 2000 and X it changed to just displaying the greater of the two. Perhaps
people pasting from web pages found the former behavior unsettling and more
people were now pasting from web pages into Word? (?) Just about when did
Word become the default (or even non-default) text editor for Outlook
Windows? I wonder if that's related...


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
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[JE McGimpsey]

Now, John (or anyone): have you any idea why displaying only the greater of
space before/after is considered to be "HTML paragraph autospacing",
http://w3.org/TR/1998/WD-css2-19980128/visudet.html#collapsing-margins


and why it suddenly became the default in Word 2000/X and later
versions (including and 2004)?

No clue, though I find it generally more useful than strictly additive
vertical margins.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

No clue, though I find it generally more useful than strictly additive
vertical margins.

Thanks, for the link, John. I'm asking some WordWin MVPs to see if they
knowŠ

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

No clue, though I find it generally more useful than strictly additive
vertical margins.

Wild guess: because the current Word XML format is actually a "Word
HTML" that should one day become the file default format??

Corentin

 

[Mickey]

I'm seeing a lot of questions regarding line spacing; that's the subject
question I have, and it's how I got here. I'm no computer wiz, but I do know
a lot about type (going back almost three decades). As far as digital type
goes, they all are subject to something called a "bounding box"; an invisible
distance above and below the character that determines how close one will
line will be in proximity to the next (or previous) line--if there is no
provision to control line spacing. My Mac had a preferences button that said
"maintain line spacing," which meant that regardless of the "bounding box" or
even the size of the character, the lines were frozen in measurement from
baseline to baseline. (That's my dilema: I need precise line spacing in my
commercial typesetting work, and I'm not seeing any control of it [or even
the ability to set leading in points] in the PC environment.) Anyway, if
you've got a segment of type that seems to have too much leading, try
reformatting to a different type font; they're all different. After a while,
you'll get a feel for the fonts in your collection that have a better line
fit (smaller "bounding box"). For example, I had an American Typewriter font
that would just push away from the preceding line (in MacDraw, which had no
precision line control function like MacWord) and an ITC Oficina Sans
simulate (the particular company called it "Saturday Sans") that would
actually set pretty tight. It quickly became my default (text) face for the
MacDraw application. One last note; bounding box (invisible) has little or
nothing to do with the x-height (the actual size) of the type chacters. That
Saturday Sans had a large x-height; some of the script typefaces that are
absolutely tiny on body seem to have the biggest bounding boxes . . . and the
more excessive leading problems.