Ensure single space at next line

  • Thread starter Thread starter Doug Mc
  • Start date Start date
D

Doug Mc

I've created a doc where, in some cases, the line spacing is not exactly
single spaced - as I'd like for it to be. It may be ALMOST right, but not
exactly.

Sometime back, I asked about a similar problem and somebody told me to go to
the end of the line and key in ??????? (shortcut keys) and the next line
would be single spaced.

But I can't find how to do that and I've lost my notes.

Can somebody please help?
Thanks,
Doug
 
You can insert a line break rather than a paragraph break by pressing
Shift+Enter, but that won't change the line spacing of the paragraph. If the
Space Before/After is the issue, then you should probably deal with that
rather than create an entire document in a single paragraph.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
OK, let's be sure that I understand:
In this case, I normally type a line or two then press Enter when I'm at the
end of the line.
In about 90% of the cases that adds the next line single-spaced; however for
some reason there's a little extra space - not a full one- before the next
line.
That's what I am trying to fix.
So, I guess you're saying press shift+enter at the end of the line rather
than just Enter??

And I guess I don't know how to "deal wiith Space Before/After."
And I'm not trying to create the entire document in a single paragraph.

Please let me know if I understand or not.
Thanks,
Doug

ps. I thought a few months ago someone told me to do the key-stroke thing
at the end of a line and it would "guarantee" the next line would be spaced
properly???????
I musta dreamed it!
 
When you press Enter, you are creating a new paragraph. The line spacing
that you set in Format | Paragraph affects only the spacing between lines in
the paragraph. The spacing between paragraphs (which is what you get when
you press Enter) may be greater if the Spacing Before or Spacing After
setting is greater than 0.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Doug:

All the options we're talking about are available to you through the Format
Paragraph command.
Click to expand...

When you type and type until your text is two or three lines long (without
having pressed Enter) the space between the lines is defined by the Line
Spacing value.

When you type one line, then press Enter to create a new paragraph, the
Spacing Before value determines how much space there is between the last line
of the previous paragraph and the first line of the new paragraph.

There's a big difference between letting word wrap create multiple lines and
pressing Enter to create multiple paragraphs. The paragraph definition
applies to all the lines in a given paragraph.

When you press Shift+Enter, you're not creating a new paragraph. You're just
forcing a new line in the same paragraph. In effect, you're overriding the
automatic word wrap. But the space between the lines is still controlled by
the Line Spacing value, because you're still in the same paragraph.

You should click the Show/Hide button (the one with the backwards P) to show
the nonprinting characters. You'll see that paragraphs end with a mark that
looks like a backward P, but line breaks (Shift+Enter) look like a "left
arrow with a tail."

Finally, the paragraph settings you apply by clicking Format > Paragraph
only apply to the current paragraph. To affect the settings for all
paragraphs, you have to work with styles.

Notice the style name of the paragraph you're currently in. If you click
Format > Style, you'll see that same style selected and ready to examine or
modify. If you click Modify > Format > Paragraph, you'll come to the same
dialog box you saw when you clicked Format > Paragraph. (The exact command
path may be different for Word 2003 and 2007.)

However, when you change the Spacing Before value for the style, you change
the space before for ALL paragraphs in your document that use that style.

Bear
 
Thanks to you, Bear and Suzanne, I now understand.
It's good to have folks to help dummies like me!

Doug
 
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