A couple of comments inline, but probably no help:

"Paul" wrote in message
...
: Hi,
:
: I have been tasked with 'cleaning up' a document with several
tables of
: figures (accounts). 'Underlining' of some of the figures (e.g.
at the end of
: a column) has been acheived by placing a row beneath the
figures and using a
: series of 'm' dashes (I presume this has been done to keep the
'underlining'
: the same width regardless of the number above - hence normal
underlining is
: not appropriate, but thinner than the width of the cell - hence
a border is
: not appropriate). The rows on which this 'underlining' appears
are made very
: thin so there is not a large gap between the 'underlining' and
the number
: above.

Would an anaolgy for this be, say, the underline characters are
to be exactly one inch in length regardless of the length of the
characters above it?
Are you sure it's being used as an underline and not just a
"column" header?
There are a couple ways Word could handle that.
:
: I have created a style for the 'underlining' to ensure
consistency.
:
: As the document has 'been around the block' a few times and the
users are
: very concerned about 'corrupt' formatting (strange formatting
anomolies that
: have crept into the document over the years making the document
behave
: strangely). I tidied it up, setting styles for all the kinds of
text it
: includes and ensuring all text is in one of the styles with no
additional
: formatting applied.

Good move.

I also decided to try saving as xml, then back to a doc
: in the hope this might clear out any remaining anomolies.

Have you tried copying the entire file, less that very last
paragraph mark, to a new blank document? That will sometimes
straighten out a lot of interesting things. Must be a lot of
info stored in that last para mark.

:
: After doing this, the row heights of the tables changed - the
rows where
: there is just the 'underlining' increased in height and I
cannot get them to
: reduce to their previous size without the 'text' (series of 'm'
dashes)
: becoming invisible (sitting too low in the cell to be seen).

Grab one of the rows, set the top cell padding to 0, and/or make
it larger - see if the dashes come back.
If you can get them back and prove they're still there, then
you set the alignment to Top instead of Center or Bottom, and the
dashes should become visible again.
Once you prove that works, then you can select the whole thing
and repeat it.

:
: I have compared to a previous version of the same document and
formatting of
: the style is identical and the settings for the table/row all
appear to be
: identical - however, in the 'old' version the text sits much
higher in the
: cell and the row can therefore be much thinner (which is the
way they are
: supposed to be).

Sounds like a simple matter of setting the vertical cell spacing
to Top? No?

:
: Can anyone explain (or hazard a guess) as to what the process
of saving to
: xml and back again has changed in the table settings and how I
can get them
: back as desired?

No idea; it's never helped me wtih anything.
:
: TIA
:
: Paul
:
: --
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