Problem with default picture layout in the Normal style

[Sara Marcoa]

I have updated the Normal style within our company's Normal.dot template.
All I did was change the font settings and line spacing. Now, users have
begun to use this new template for creating new blank documents. When
inserting images after a few lines of text (Insert > Picture > From File),
the layout does not respond as it used to when using the old Normal.dot:

Old Normal.dot: The image was completely visible below the text
New Normal.dot: Only the bottom edge of the image is visible because the
rest of the image is hidden behind the text.

I went into Format > Picture in documents based on both templates, and the
settings appear to be identical. (e.g. Both have the Layout set to "In line
with text".)
If I click on the image to select it (in either document), I see that the
style is set to "Normal".
When I compare Normal styles in each template (File > Print > Print what =
"styles"), I see nothing about image layout settings.

Any ideas how to force the inserted images to appear below or in line with
text?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It sounds as if you have defined exact line spacing for the Normal style.
The whole idea of using styles is to have a different style for each type of
formatting. So you need a different style, with Single line spacing, for
your graphics. I would also discourage the idea of changing the line spacing
of Normal style, as that can affect almost every other style (see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/HowStylesCascade.html); I would
suggest instead that you modify Body Text and use that as your basic text
style.

 

[Sara Marcoa]

Yes, I did have the line spacing set to Exactly 5 mm. Changing that to
"single" or "1 1/2" lines fixed the problem with the image layout. The line
spacing setting of "At least 5 mm" turned out to be the best working
solution in the end since we could stick to the 5 mm.

Thanks for the tip about not changing the Normal style. Is there a way to
force new blank documents to use Body Text instead of Normal? (It is so hard
to get users to remember to select a style in the list...)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can change the default empty paragraph in Normal style to Body Text, but
you'd be better off creating specific document templates and avoiding the
use of Normal.dot altogether. This is an issue of user training, but if you
have the templates set up correctly (with custom style toolbars if
required), then they will easily learn to use the template that makes it
easy for them to achieve the desired results.