While in Word 2003 and specifying space before and space after, the spacing
that actually appears in the document does not match what is selected. For
instance, when selecting 6 before and 6 after, the formatting in the document
indicates 0 before and 6 after; 12 before and 6 after results in 6 before and
6 after in the document. This problem did not exist in three previous
versions of Word, which we used to establish very specific styles for our
documents. The layout of our documents has been adversely impacted by this
change.

Hi Brad,

Go to Tools Options Compatibility and check the option for "Don't use
HTML paragraph auto spacing". That should put your documents back the way
they were.

When that option is not checked (the default setting), Word doesn't add the
Space After of one paragraph to the Space Before of the next; instead, it
uses only the larger of the two. This is supposed to match the way spacing
works in HTML pages, and makes it easier to publish the same document on
paper and on the Web.

Choosing the "recommended options for" dropdown indicates that of the four
most recent versions of Word, only Word 97 had the option turned on by
default. I don't have any way to verify that at the moment.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Brad Anderson wrote:
While in Word 2003 and specifying space before and space after, the
spacing that actually appears in the document does not match what is
selected. For instance, when selecting 6 before and 6 after, the
formatting in the document indicates 0 before and 6 after; 12 before
and 6 after results in 6 before and 6 after in the document. This
problem did not exist in three previous versions of Word, which we
used to establish very specific styles for our documents. The layout
of our documents has been adversely impacted by this change.

FWIW, I can verify that you remember correctly: The "Don't use HTML
paragraph auto spacing" compatibility option was first available in
Word 2000.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
...
Hi Brad,

Go to Tools Options Compatibility and check the option for
"Don't use
HTML paragraph auto spacing". That should put your documents back
the way
they were.

When that option is not checked (the default setting), Word doesn't
add the
Space After of one paragraph to the Space Before of the next;
instead, it
uses only the larger of the two. This is supposed to match the way
spacing
works in HTML pages, and makes it easier to publish the same
document on
paper and on the Web.

Choosing the "recommended options for" dropdown indicates that of
the four
most recent versions of Word, only Word 97 had the option turned on
by
default. I don't have any way to verify that at the moment.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Brad Anderson wrote:
While in Word 2003 and specifying space before and space after,
the
spacing that actually appears in the document does not match what
is
selected. For instance, when selecting 6 before and 6 after, the
formatting in the document indicates 0 before and 6 after; 12
before
and 6 after results in 6 before and 6 after in the document. This
problem did not exist in three previous versions of Word, which we
used to establish very specific styles for our documents. The
layout
of our documents has been adversely impacted by this change.