Please help with (basic) format question.

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UltimateGaijin

Is there a particular way to NOT have the first line of a first/new page
indented?

I've been ready and experimenting but I always end up the first word of a
new page indented. I'd like it to look something like,

***** ********** * ******** **** ******** *. ******** **** ** *******.
********* **** *** ******* .
*****, ************ ********* ********. *********** ********* ******
***. ***********.
I don't know the name of the rule, but most stuff i read has the first
paragraph of a new page not intented

I hope you can understand that.
thanks
 
Hi there:

If you go to Format-> Styles and Formatting-> select, say, "Normal". Now
click on "Modify", then click on "Format", then "Paragraph", then in the
"Indentation" area, in the "Special" combo-box, select "First Line". Now in
the "By" combo-box you can put "0".

That should do it. Remember to click on the checkmark area to "Add to
template" if you want it saved to your "Normal" template.

Cheers,
Al
 
Can you clarify this a little?

The first line of any new page - the first page of a new document or
additional pages that come later - should not be indented automatically
unless it is also the first line of a new paragraph *and* the style applied
to the paragraph calls for indentation or it's the continuation of a
paragraph that has a left indent applied.

A more exact description would be most helpful . Which version of Word are
you using & what styles/paragraph formatting have been applied?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
 
If the first line on the page is the beginning of a paragraph, and you are
using an indented paragraph style, such as Body Text First Indent, you can
apply an unindented style, such as Body Text, to the first paragraph. There
is no real publishing convention in this regard, however, except that the
first paragraph following a side heading is usually flush left, and that
situation can be handled by making Body Text the following style for your
heading styles and Body Text First Indent the following style for Body Text.

If you're getting an apparent indent even though the text at the top of the
page is in the middle of a paragraph, there are two possible causes:

1. You're usually an indented style and have inserted a manual page break at
the end of the previous page, thus creating a paragraph break as well.
Manual page breaks should be avoided.

2. A frame or text box or other invisible graphic object anchored to the
header is displacing the text; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UnaccountablyIndented.htm
 
Thanks for the replies, i relize i could have put it better. What i have
noticed is that in most/all ducuments the first paragraph is NOT indented but
all subsequent ones are. I dont know them name of this rule but it seems to
be the norm.

If i set indentation all paragraphs are indented, including the first.
 
As Suzanne wrote, you will have to use a different, unindented style for the
first paragraph of text.
 
Stefan Blom said:
As Suzanne wrote, you will have to use a different, unindented style for the
first paragraph of text.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I always assumed there must be some way of setting this as a
standard template as it's so ubiquitous
 
I'm still having a hard time understanding what you think is ubiquitous.
When paragraphs have a first-line indent, it is conventional for the first
paragraph on a page to be indented as well unless it starts a new section.
If it is a continuation of the last paragraph on the previous page, then it
should not be broken across the pages, which would happen only if a manual
page break or section break (or paragraph break) were breaking it.
 
Hi Stefan:

What I don't understand is what is wrong with simply setting the "Normal"
style and setting to not indent the first paragraph only? Word does have this
feature, and as such would be the ideal way to handle this problem (read my
original note on how to arrive at that setting).

Cheers,
Al
 
If you are suggesting applying direct formatting to given paragraphs in the
same style, then the reason for not doing it is that it makes a less easily
maintained document. The whole reason for having different styles is to
apply different formatting. And for complex documents such as books, the
Normal style will usually be avoided, anyway, with variations of Body Text
preferred.
 
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