[Paul B[_3_]]

Hi. I've been doing a lot of work in Word '03 in pages divided
into two columns. They are not Tables, per se, just a two-column
page format.

The problem I often have is that assigning paragraph styles with
different before and after spacing will send paragraphs across
the columns out of verical alignment. Let me try to illustrate:


Column One Column Two


Heading 3 style para
Heading 3 style para
normal style
normal style


-----column break--- ------Page break--------


That exaggerates the problem, because it's usually only part of a
line's height out of alignment, but such are the limits of plain
text.

The problem seems to be due to Word's insistence on assigning the
paragraph style of the first line, second column to the break
immediately proceeding it. Thus, the column break in column one
above is given the Heading 3 style, pushing the first line,
second column downward. If I manually remove that H3 assignment
from the break, it's taken off the ensuing line as well. So I'm
stuck.

I've even tried "Don't add space between paras of same style" for
H3, but to no avail.

Surely there must be some way to ensure vertical paragraph
alignment across columns? I'm confounded why Word would attach
the H3 designation to the prior break.

Thanks,
p.