You should modify your Normal style and set it back to the original defaults
since making changes to it can lead to other style issues, such as Table
styles. Then, create a new document based on your Normal template, display
the Styles task pane (press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S), click Manage Styles at the
bottom, select the Set Defaults tab, and make your changes there. Select the
option, "New documents based on this template" The Normal style will then
follow your defaults for all new documents.
Unfortunately, this doesn't resolve the problem with merging labels.: -(
From what I can ascertain, when the Word table is inserted to create the
label structure, it's also adding space before each paragraph and a left and
right indent. For example if using Avery 5160, 5.55 pts of space is added
before each paragraph and 0.08" left and right indent. This is direct
formatting and not added by your Normal style. I don't like this either and
I suspect there will be several others who will also have issues with it. (I
suspect this is a failed attempt at adding a bit of padding before the first
paragraph.) Note that it appears as though this only applies to Labels and
not the Letters when creating a merge. Letters will use whatever style, or
direct formatting, you opt to use.
What I'd recommend is to set up a template for each label definition you use
for your merges. This can be accomplished by selecting the Merge document
(labels) and then modifying the formats - you could select the table and
then click "Clear Formatting" on the Home tab in the Font group. Place the
template in a shared folder and point your users' Workgroup template folder
to that location. Then instruct your users to use the appropriate template
for their merge. Then all they would need to do is associated the data
source although if that's the same each time then you could include that in
your template as well which actually might save time in the long run.
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/boo...x#AboutTheBook
Word FAQ:
http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine:
http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site:
http://mvps.org/
"Icemaiden" wrote in message
...
Well, I changed my "normal" style to be single spaced a while ago so that
doesn't seem to be the solution and I don't use the address block for the
merges, I put in each separate field. So what I'm hearing, is there is no
way to set the default label document to be single spaced?! I have an
office
of 21 people that use Word merges with Access and I'd really like to be
able
to tell them how to configure their software to work correctly.
Sometimes I really dislike Microsoft with their holier-than-thou decisions
on what they think people should use. Office 2007 is a prime example!
Thanks.
LT
"Doug Robbins - Word MVP" wrote:
Are you talking about line spacing or paragraph spacing. Possibly you
have
the paragraph spacing in the Normal style set to have 12pts after it and
because the elements of the address are in separate paragraphs, they
appear
to be double spaced.
You may also be using the addressblock which has each element of the
address
in a separate paragraph. Instead of doing that, just insert the
individual
merge fields into the label in the configuration that you want them,
separating each with a new line feed (Shift+Enter) rather than a carriage
return if you want to retain the space between paragraphs in your Normal
style.
--
Hope this helps.
Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
"Icemaiden" wrote in message
...
I've set my default template/document in Word 2007 to single space for
all
new documents. However, this doesn't seem to hold true when trying to
do
a
mail merge with labels??!!?? I can't seem to find a way to change the
default label document - if there is such an animal.... I want all my
documents to be single spaced - labels, envelopes, letters etc. - I
want
it
to be the default (don't want to manually change each and every
document I
create). If I choose to change to a different paragraph style, I will!
I
don't want MS to choose for me.
Help!?!?!
Thanks. :-)
LT