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#1
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Suppress paragraph "spacing before" at top of page
Is there a way to suppress paragraph "spacing before" when a paragraph
starts at the top of a new page or column? I'm using Word 2003. Previous discussions about this say that Word does it automatically, but that's not happening in my documents (previous discussions were using previous versions of Word. Has something changed?). Thanks, Kevin |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Suppress paragraph "spacing before" at top of page
Hi Kevin:
No, nothing has changed: Word does do it automatically, but the design of the feature is very buggy. There's a complex set of rules to determine whether Word suppresses space at the top of the page or not. That's the bug. What "should" happen is that it works every time. What "does" happen is that Word works through a decision tree to decide whether it's going to do what it should. Very simplistically, the rule is "If WORD threw the paragraph to the next page, Word will suppress space above. If YOU threw the paragraph, Word will print the space." So: If you use a hard page break, a column break, a section break, or anything else that you type to move the paragraph to the top of the next page, you'll get the space. If you use Keep Lines Together and Keep With Next in combination to persuade Word to move the paragraph for you, it will correctly suppress the space. You must use Keep Lines Together to prevent Word splitting a paragraph therwise Keep With NExt cannot operate. I tend to use Keep Lines Together on all my body text styles anyway: forcing readers to chase paragraphs from one page to another is bad document design that belongs way in the past: paper doesn't cost that much these days :-) Of course, the exception is legal contracts where a single sentence may run more than one page :-) Word does have an option in teh Compatibility Options that allows you to force it to sppress space above at the top of the page always. Be careful with that one: it can result in some strange effects, and you have to set it for each document. One thing I do that helps is to use ONLY space below on the body text styles. This prevents a ragged top margin because no matter ow the paragraph gets to the top of the page, there is no space above to make it look silly. With Headings, f course, you do need to use space above. But generally, a Word document will require less pagination intervention if you conevert your styles where possible to use only space below. Hope this helps -- John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer, McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs +61 4 1209 1410, "Kevin" wrote in message oups.com... Is there a way to suppress paragraph "spacing before" when a paragraph starts at the top of a new page or column? I'm using Word 2003. Previous discussions about this say that Word does it automatically, but that's not happening in my documents (previous discussions were using previous versions of Word. Has something changed?). Thanks, Kevin |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Suppress paragraph "spacing before" at top of page
I've always found it particularly frustrating that there is no documentation
about what the distinction is between the various options... Suppress extra line spacing at top of page Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like Word 5.x for the Mac Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like WordPerfect 5.x Suppress Space Before after a hard page or column break How the hell do I know what those mean?? And furthermore, how do I know what's going to happen when I make multiple selections (since they're all check boxes). arggh Mike "John McGhie" wrote in message ... snip Word does have an option in teh Compatibility Options that allows you to force it to sppress space above at the top of the page always. Be careful with that one: it can result in some strange effects, and you have to set it for each document. |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Suppress paragraph "spacing before" at top of page
FWIW, there's a KB article that purports to explain the Compatibility
Options. Let me see if I can locate it...yes, here it is: "Description of the Compatibility options that are available in the Options dialog box in Word 2003, Word 2002, and Word 2000" at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=288792. Its description of the options you mention is as follows: Suppress extra line spacing at top of page: This option prevents Word from adding extra line spacing at the top of a page. If the line spacing for the line at the top of a page is set for more than single spacing, Word ignores the extra spacing, so that the top margin does not increase. Suppress extra line spacing at the top of page like Word 5.x for the Mac: This option prevents Word from adding extra line spacing at the top of a page. If the line spacing for the line at the top of a page is set for more than single line spacing, Word ignores the extra spacing, so that the top margin does not increase. Suppress extra line spacing like WordPerfect 5.x: This option ensures that the layout of a converted WordPerfect document that is formatted with Automatic line height closely matches that of the original document. Suppress Space Before after a hard page or column break: This option suppresses the space in a paragraph formatted with the Space Before option that follows a hard page break or column break. Note that "extra line spacing" is not the same as "Space Before." "Extra line spacing" would be (as stated) anything other than Single: Double, 1.5 lines, Triple, At least, Exactly, or Multiple. Some of these spacing settings result in space above text lines, some below, some split (see the Compatibility Option "Don't center 'exact line height' lines"), which is why it can be very tricky to mix Multiple spacing (including Double, Triple, etc.) and "Exactly" spacing. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Mike Starr" wrote in message ... I've always found it particularly frustrating that there is no documentation about what the distinction is between the various options... Suppress extra line spacing at top of page Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like Word 5.x for the Mac Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like WordPerfect 5.x Suppress Space Before after a hard page or column break How the hell do I know what those mean?? And furthermore, how do I know what's going to happen when I make multiple selections (since they're all check boxes). arggh Mike "John McGhie" wrote in message ... snip Word does have an option in teh Compatibility Options that allows you to force it to sppress space above at the top of the page always. Be careful with that one: it can result in some strange effects, and you have to set it for each document. |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Suppress paragraph "spacing before" at top of page
Thanks for the link, Suzanne. I do find it shameful that this information
has never made it into the help file. It's been missing since Word 97 (possibly before but I wasn't skilled enough with previous versions to know what I was missing). Best regards Mike "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message ... FWIW, there's a KB article that purports to explain the Compatibility Options. Let me see if I can locate it...yes, here it is: "Description of the Compatibility options that are available in the Options dialog box in Word 2003, Word 2002, and Word 2000" at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=288792. Its description of the options you mention is as follows: Suppress extra line spacing at top of page: This option prevents Word from adding extra line spacing at the top of a page. If the line spacing for the line at the top of a page is set for more than single spacing, Word ignores the extra spacing, so that the top margin does not increase. Suppress extra line spacing at the top of page like Word 5.x for the Mac: This option prevents Word from adding extra line spacing at the top of a page. If the line spacing for the line at the top of a page is set for more than single line spacing, Word ignores the extra spacing, so that the top margin does not increase. Suppress extra line spacing like WordPerfect 5.x: This option ensures that the layout of a converted WordPerfect document that is formatted with Automatic line height closely matches that of the original document. Suppress Space Before after a hard page or column break: This option suppresses the space in a paragraph formatted with the Space Before option that follows a hard page break or column break. Note that "extra line spacing" is not the same as "Space Before." "Extra line spacing" would be (as stated) anything other than Single: Double, 1.5 lines, Triple, At least, Exactly, or Multiple. Some of these spacing settings result in space above text lines, some below, some split (see the Compatibility Option "Don't center 'exact line height' lines"), which is why it can be very tricky to mix Multiple spacing (including Double, Triple, etc.) and "Exactly" spacing. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Mike Starr" wrote in message ... I've always found it particularly frustrating that there is no documentation about what the distinction is between the various options... Suppress extra line spacing at top of page Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like Word 5.x for the Mac Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like WordPerfect 5.x Suppress Space Before after a hard page or column break How the hell do I know what those mean?? And furthermore, how do I know what's going to happen when I make multiple selections (since they're all check boxes). arggh Mike "John McGhie" wrote in message ... snip Word does have an option in teh Compatibility Options that allows you to force it to sppress space above at the top of the page always. Be careful with that one: it can result in some strange effects, and you have to set it for each document. |
#6
Posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Suppress paragraph "spacing before" at top of page
When context-sensitive Help was removed from the app, it was a huge step
backward. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Mike Starr" wrote in message ... Thanks for the link, Suzanne. I do find it shameful that this information has never made it into the help file. It's been missing since Word 97 (possibly before but I wasn't skilled enough with previous versions to know what I was missing). Best regards Mike "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message ... FWIW, there's a KB article that purports to explain the Compatibility Options. Let me see if I can locate it...yes, here it is: "Description of the Compatibility options that are available in the Options dialog box in Word 2003, Word 2002, and Word 2000" at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=288792. Its description of the options you mention is as follows: Suppress extra line spacing at top of page: This option prevents Word from adding extra line spacing at the top of a page. If the line spacing for the line at the top of a page is set for more than single spacing, Word ignores the extra spacing, so that the top margin does not increase. Suppress extra line spacing at the top of page like Word 5.x for the Mac: This option prevents Word from adding extra line spacing at the top of a page. If the line spacing for the line at the top of a page is set for more than single line spacing, Word ignores the extra spacing, so that the top margin does not increase. Suppress extra line spacing like WordPerfect 5.x: This option ensures that the layout of a converted WordPerfect document that is formatted with Automatic line height closely matches that of the original document. Suppress Space Before after a hard page or column break: This option suppresses the space in a paragraph formatted with the Space Before option that follows a hard page break or column break. Note that "extra line spacing" is not the same as "Space Before." "Extra line spacing" would be (as stated) anything other than Single: Double, 1.5 lines, Triple, At least, Exactly, or Multiple. Some of these spacing settings result in space above text lines, some below, some split (see the Compatibility Option "Don't center 'exact line height' lines"), which is why it can be very tricky to mix Multiple spacing (including Double, Triple, etc.) and "Exactly" spacing. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Mike Starr" wrote in message ... I've always found it particularly frustrating that there is no documentation about what the distinction is between the various options... Suppress extra line spacing at top of page Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like Word 5.x for the Mac Suppress extra line spacing at top of page like WordPerfect 5.x Suppress Space Before after a hard page or column break How the hell do I know what those mean?? And furthermore, how do I know what's going to happen when I make multiple selections (since they're all check boxes). arggh Mike "John McGhie" wrote in message ... snip Word does have an option in teh Compatibility Options that allows you to force it to sppress space above at the top of the page always. Be careful with that one: it can result in some strange effects, and you have to set it for each document. |
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