This is something Word doesn't handle well. You can opt for "Don't add space
between paragraphs of the same style," but you can't opt for "Add only this
much space between paragraphs of the same style. Other than modifying
specific list members, the only real option is to give the style used for
the bullet points 6 points Spacing Before or After (or 3 points Before *and*
After) and then combine that with Spacing After in the introductory
paragraph and Before in the following paragraph.
I actually prefer to have less space between the introductory paragraph and
the list than between the list and the following paragraph (often
unrelated), so I'd use 6 points After on the preceding paragraph and the
list paragraphs and then use a style with 6 or 12 points Before for the
following paragraph. You could actually achieve this by using 6 points
Before *and* After for your ordinary text paragraphs and just 6 points After
for the bulleted list. This would give you 12 points between paragraphs (by
adding 6 + 6), 6 points between the introductory paragraph and the bullets,
6 points after each bullet, and 12 points between bullets and following
paragraph. This assumes, however, that you have checked the Compatibility
Option "Don't use HTML paragraph auto spacing," since the auto spacing uses
the larger of combined Before and After amounts instead of adding them.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org