What can be causing very slightly inconsistent top margins?

[Bert Coules]

I have a document of some 120 pages, typed throughout to a consistent
layout: one template, one typeface (Courier new 12pt) and one header,
(consisting of just the page number in the upper right-hand corner).

Strangely, the words on a few pages seems to be positioned very slightly
lower than on the majority. This is most noticeable when moving through the
document in print view - the top line on some pages suddenly drops by about
half the height of the actual letters. Obviously, it's also noticeable if I
print the document.

This isn't particularly a problem, but it is both annoying and puzzling, and
I'd be interested to know what could be causing it.

Many thanks.

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There are several things that might cause it.

1. The first thing I'd investigate is whether the vertical alignment is
perhaps set to Center rather than Top. If all pages are full, this might be
barely noticeable, but it's a long shot since you'd surely have some short
pages that would be obviously centered.

2. There are several compatibility settings (Tools | Options |
Compatibility) that govern how Exact line spacing is handled at the top and
bottom of a page, as well as Space Before after a hard page or column break.

3. Display nonprinting characters to see whether you can detect an empty
paragraph formatted to a small size. Heaven only knows why that might be
there, but I wouldn't put it past someone to use such a thing (if you
created the document yourself, you can discount this).

4. If the document contains more than one section, check the header in every
section to make sure there are no empty paragraphs that might push the page
text down (again, pretty much a long shot).

 

[Bert Coules]

2. There are several compatibility settings (Tools | Options |
Compatibility) that govern how Exact line spacing is handled at the top
and bottom of a page, as well as Space Before after a hard page or column
break.

It was line spacing that was the problem, but not in an especially
complicated way. The document was supposed to be 1.5 line spaced
throughout, but some pages had been formatted to Exact 17pt, to fit in a
final line in a paragraph rather than having it spill over to the next page.

I reformatted the entire document to Exact 17pt and the problem has
disappeared.

Many thanks.

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Thanks for the feedback, Bert.

 

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for the feedback, Bert.

You're welcome. Maybe someone else will have the same problem sometime, and
this exchange might help.

You know it's in cases like this that some way of putting *all* the
formatting codes on screen would be enormously helpful. Or am I just
thinking like an ex-WordPerfect user?

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In Word 2003 and earlier, at least, you can really come quite close. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm. (I just looked at that
article and can see that it needs some help; somehow it has been re-edited
to be nonsense in places, but it still contains a lot of good information if
you can sort through the verbiage to find it!)

 

[Bert Coules]

Thanks, Suzanne, I'll take a look. And I'll try to ignore the verbiage.

Bert