No Spacing Style *not* working

[Matthew W. I. Dunn]

I have used Word 2000 intensively for years. If I was writing a bibliography
or taking notes, then I could insert Paragraph marks between text to keep
things clear (I hit Enter twice at end. Yes, MVP's, I know that's "caveman
style;" but, it worked). I had no problem highlighting and moving text with
the paragraph marks in-between, either within a document or between two
documents.

Now, with 2007 there are 10 (invisible) spaces added when one hits Enter for
a new paragraph or line of text. This is really screwing me up: *NOW*, if I
try to highlight and move chunks of text with the paragraph marks/10-points
at the end, Word removes the spaces between the paragraphs, giving me a big
mess of unseparated text (which, of course, I then have to go through and hit
Enter again between the text I want clearly separated).

Someone told me to go Office Button > Styles > No Spacing. That's worked
sporadically for about a week. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.
You know: Microsoft's programs are "intuitive"! ;-)

If I change a document's style to No Spacing, then it seems to work okay
within that doc. However, if I try to drag text from one document to another
-- even if they are BOTH No Spacing style, it will remove the 10-point
spacing from the highlighted, dragged text . . . and, I have another annoying
"text mess" on my hands.

As you can guess, my work has s- - l - - o - - w - - e - -d while trying to
get around 2007's unintuitive and problematic program. (Glitches in the
Scroll Bar, anyone?)

Is there some way to solve this without dumping 2007 altogether and
reinstalling my old Word 2000?

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I'm not sure what you mean by "10 (invisible) spaces". Do you mean 10 points
of additional vertical spacing?

Try this...

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S (or click the Styles launcher in the SE corner of the
Styles section in the Home ribbon tab).

Click the Manage Styles button near the bottom of the Style pane.

In Manage Styles, click the Set Defaults tab.

Under Paragraph Spacing, set the After spacing as desired, and change Line
spacing to Single. This will give you what it sounds like you want... I
think. While here, notice the other defaults... which you can change if you
like.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Having said that, however, while I hate the Multiple 1.15 line spacing, I've
used After spacing for most of my paragraph spacing for years (albeit 12
points, not 10, and my default point size for text is 12, not 11, which is
absurdly small for my purposes). It prevents me from having to press Enter
twice after each paragraph (and for the kind of writing I do, double-spacing
between paragraphs is needed). When I need paragraphs to use single or other
spacing, then I switch to a different style.

However... we all work differently, and you should be able to achieve what
you want by changing the defaults.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Matthew W. I. Dunn]

Thanks for the reply.

I wrongly thought Word was deleting or adding extra Paragraph Marks when I
was trying to move text. However, another MVP told me that that was not the
case: By default, Word would now be adding 10 points (spaces?) to the end of
text whenever I hit Enter.

I followed your instructions, but all the settings are *already* set the way
you describe: The Manage Styles box showed 0 point before and after and
single line spacing, for both the Normal the No Spacing styles. Why, then,
would it still be doing what it's doing? If I move a block of text, it
removes the spacing, and I get what appears to be a big block of text.

Could you, please, explain why Word 2007 does this now? I haven't really
gotten a clear explanation from other MVP's as to the benefits of the
program's placement of 10 points after hitting Enter. In other words, what
is this feature *doing* for me now -- other than frustrating me.