Ok I don’t know what these are called, so I can’t search for them.
Let’s say I leave blank lines between paragraphs, like this.
If one paragraph ends at the last line of a page, e.g.
------------------------------page break-----------------
The next page will start with a blank line on top. Is there a way to avoid this? Or is it recommended to use paragraph spacing: after instead of putting 2 line breaks?
Another question: is there a way to link cells in tables like linking text boxes, so text will flow from one cell to another?
Doesn’t Word handle this automatically? (I rarely use Word, but my ancient version of WordPerfect certainly does.)
That is to say if, as per normal, you tap return twice to end a paragraph (i.e., inserting two hard returns), if the first of these gets you to the end of a page, the second will be ignored, and the new paragraph will be started at the top of the next page (won’t it?). Are you tapping return more than twice at the end of a paragraph, to get bigger spacing between paragraphs? I guess if you do that you might cause the paragraph on the new page to be moved down as you describe. I think the solution to this is to change paragraph spacing options (which you can do in Word), so that you still only have to use two taps to get the spacing you want. Then it will will still know to ignore the second hard return as appropriate.
There are several ways of handling this depending on what overall effect you want.
Paragraph spacing is probably the best in this case. Home > Paragraph (or select all, right-click, paragraph) brings up the paragraph box and controls the entire document. You can set the spacing after a paragraph to any number of points but a new page will always start the top.
A somewhat different approach is also found in Paragraphs. Click the Line and Page Breaks tab and check the widow/orphan control box.
Multiple line breaks are almost always the wrong solution because they don’t allow Word to automatically correct. Of course, there are times you don’t want Word and its blasted corrections doing things you didn’t intend. Deciding which way you want to go ahead of time is usually the best course. Still, you can always select a block of text and use Paragraph to change that single piece if necessary.
The proper way to format things in Word is to ask Word to format things.
In this case, to leave some blank area between paragraphs, you’re supposed to use the “spacing before” and “spacing after” attributes for paragraphs. Not hit Return twice.
When you press Return twice, you’re creating an empty paragraph. Word then considers that this empty paragraph is somehow important to you, and will make an effort to put it on a page somewhere.
After you copy but **before **you paste, click on the arrow under the Paste button on the ribbon. You get a number of options about formatting. You can also set defaults from a long list of options.
NEVER space paragraphs with hard returns; always use “space before” and/or “space after.” Have some pity on the person (possibly you) who will be editing the style of the text.
Even back in the days of linotype machines, there have always been easy ways to do this. By now, it really shouldn’t be a problem.
(And by the way, I hope you’re not indenting text by adding word spaces.)
Yes, I thought paragraph spacing was the proper way to do it. But what if I DON’T want spacing between some paragraphs? Or am I supposed to stick to one style of spacing?
You can check the box to instruct Word not to add space between paragraphs of the same type; if that doesn’t meet your needs, you can just individually format the paragraphs to add or remove the spaces. It just takes a couple of clicks for one paragraph; a double-click on the format painter and a double click next to each paragraph thereafter (or just select an entire stretch of text), or just repeat the step if your paragraphs have other formatting differences.
No. Word *never *ignores a hard return, which it refers to as a “paragraph mark” (in case you ever need to search for it). BTW it will only show you these if you turn on the option to see paragraph marks, which I always do.
And also I hope you don’t use multiple consecutive tabs to align columns of text. :eek:
This is a bit of a drawback. Under Paragraph options you can check “Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style.” But you have to do that for the specific paragraphs where you don’t want space, or create a new style that doesn’t have the space and apply that to the specific paragraphs. The “read my mind” option is not yet available.
Thanks, I tried it and it seems to work. At least, it brings the last line of the previous paragraph across so the first line isn’t blank. What I did was:
previous paragraph blah blah (no line breaks)
---------------page break-------------
last line of previous paragraph blah (soft return)
(hard return)
next paragraph
Between this and controlling paragraph spacing, I should be happy. Thanks!
Adjust the tab stops. That way if you need to change alignment you can change them all at one time. Actually the table is quite good too and even easier to adjust.
Yeah I’m a big fan of invisible tables. SO much easier to add columns of text than using 2 section breaks. Only problem is with text overflowing, that’s why I asked if cells could be linked.
Doesn’t Word handle this automatically? (I rarely use Word, but my ancient version of WordPerfect certainly does.)
