[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Glad you got there in the end! Styles really are the most powerful feature
of Word, I think, and until you get comfortable with them, you can never
really exploit many of Word's other great features.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"Paul" wrote in message
...
Great. I have it all set up now--body text is 12 pt in front and after;
all three headings are set to have body text follow them... Normal style
is, well, normal...

OK Thanks Suzanne, it took a while...I've been very slow to use styles in
Word and you can tell that its only real basic stuff that I do with them
but this will make it very smooth for me.

--
Paul
Office 2007
XP SP3
Dell Inspiron 1501


"Paul" wrote in message
...
ok thanks.

--
Paul
Office 2007
XP SP3
Dell Inspiron 1501


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
You don't need to make the change every time you use a different style.
There are two ways that Word works:

1. Most styles have the same style named as the following style, so if
you start with that style (Normal, say, or Body Text), then every time
you press Enter, you get a paragraph in the same style.

2. A few styles have a different style designated as the "Style for
following paragraph." AFAIK, the built-in heading styles are the only
ones that have this behavior by default, and they do have Normal
designated, but you can modify the style (not just the paragraphs but
the heading styles themselves) to make Body Text the following style (I
have done this in the templates I use). Then when you press Enter at the
end of a heading, you'll get Body Text instead of Normal. Naturally, you
would save this change to Normal.dot to make it the default.

This leaves Normal untouched and gives you Body Text as your basic
paragraph style.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"Paul" wrote in message
...
OK if I'd need to make this change every time I used a new style (I use
header 1, 2, 3 a lot) I think I'll just make the changes to normal. I
don't really use styles for anything other than these headers, and I
never do mailing labels. But I will keep your caveat in mind, in the
event I see things I don't like. Thanks.

--
Paul
Office 2007
XP SP3
Dell Inspiron 1501


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
If you select the default empty paragraph in Normal.dot and format it
as Body Text, then you will start in that style and, assuming you
don't change to another style, you will continue in that style. Note
that Normal is the "Style for following paragraph" of the built-in
heading styles, so you'd need to change that to Body Text.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"Paul" wrote in message
...
OK I did that--I saved it to the normal.dot template. To get the
paragraphs to be spaced like this, I have to select all my text, and
then hit the STyles and formatting icon, then click on Body Text.
Then and only then, does it come out like this. One reason I want to
do this is that I like to actually type this way, instead of do all
my typing and only at the end, change its appearance (to be 12 point
spaced before and after).

My question: is there any way I can make this Body Text style be the
default style, so that I get this spacing every time I hit the enter
key? Or is modifying the normal style the only way to get this?

--
Paul
Office 2007
XP SP3
Dell Inspiron 1501


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Are you modifying the Normal style? Are you checking the box for
"Add to template"? FWIW, I wouldn't modify Normal this way because
of the effect it will have on all other styles based on Normal (not
to mention other uses of Normal, such as in labels). I would instead
modify Body Text and apply that style to the empty paragraph in
Normal.dot.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"Paul" wrote in message
...
I have tried to set up a permandent 12 pt space before and after
paragraphs in Word 2003, but even after making this selection,
hitting OK, and even saving it to a template, Word always seems to
go back to the 0 point space. I would like Word to always give me a
space between paragraphs, with a hard return. Is there a way to get
this to happen with every document, from a template (or just with
Word's Options)?

--
Paul
Office 2007
XP SP3
Dell Inspiron 1501