Why does automatic page break in a paragraph change left margin?

[barryh]

After an automatic page break that occurs within a paragraph, the first line
that appears on the next page is shifted to the left a half inch. The ruler
shows no change in the left margin. Showing formatting marks doesn't reveal
an obvious cause either.

Inserting a hard or soft return before the page break does not help.

Anyone else have this problem? Can anyone suggest a workaround?

 

[Jezebel]

Go to File > Page setup. Set the 'Multiple pages' dropdown to Normal.

 

[barryh]

Thanks, but Multiple pages was already set to Normal.

 

[Jezebel]

Do you have different left and right pages layout, and a non-zero gutter?

 

[barryh]

Nope, single layout for all pages.

Do you have different left and right pages layout, and a non-zero gutter?

 

[Stefan Blom]

See if the following article can help:

Text at the top of the page is unaccountably indented
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/UnaccountablyIndented.htm

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[barryh]

Thanks for the article.

In my document, however, the text is unaccountably indented only on some
pages. When I turn on the option to view Text Boundaries, the indented (in
some cases, hanging) line appears to be in a text box of its own. It appears
to be in a one-line text box, and then the rest of the text is in a text box
that covers the rest of the page.

But there is no empty frame similar to the one described in the MVP article
you referred me to.

I can get a screen shot if that will help.

Barry

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

What you're seeing is what the display looks like when Word is wrapping text
around something. So there's *something* there. It might, for example, be an
AutoShape with no (or white) line and fill. You might try displaying the
Drawing toolbar and clicking on the Select Objects tool. Wave that around in
the area in question and see if it allows you to select anything.

 

[barryh]

I'm beginning to feel like an idiot. I displayed the Drawing toolbar and
tried waving the Select Objects tool around the area and also clicked and
dragged so it would select all objects within the area I dragged and nothing
was selected. I went to the bottom of the previous page and tried dragging
there too. Same result.

I appreciate all the assistance and suggestions, I really do. But this one
is getting really frustrating.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you like, you can send the file to my email, and I'll have a look. Make
sure to include a description of the problem in the covering email and use a
subject line that will not look like spam.

 

[barryh]

FINALLY found the problem. A picture I had in the header was a little large.
I put an extra hard return into the header and the problem went away.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Alternatively, you could reduce the "Distance from text" on the picture
layout, add Space After to your header paragraph, increase the top margin,
decrease the header margin, etc.