Space Before and After Paragraphs

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Ever since Word 2003, I’ve had this issue:

If I have a heading style with 6 pts AFTER paragraph, and the paragraph following that style has 6 pts BEFORE paragraph, instead of ending up with a total of 12 points between them, I only get 6 pts. I realize that it is subracting when it encounters ‘points after’ followed by ‘points before’, but I don’t want it to do that!

Is there a way to override this so I get the spacing the way I want it?

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The space you see is the greater of the spaces before or after. This link says Framemaker behaves the same way but InDesign adds both spaces –
http://bestfontforward.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/much-ado-about-paragraph-spacing/

The good news is in Word this can be controlled by changing a layout option. The option is called “HTML paragraph auto spacing” and it can be turned off in Word 2010 by going to File > Options > Advanced > Layout Options. The “Don’t use HTML paragraph auto spacing” box needs to be checked if you want both paragraph spaces to be added together. See the following link for where I found the clues for this option.

http://www.betalogue.com/2004/06/24/word-2004-totally-irrational-behaviour-with-space-before-setting-in-paragraph-styles/

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What Word calls HTML spacing, where the greater of two spacings is used instead of adding them, has been the default behavior at least since W2002. To get the additive spacing you want, go the Word options > Advanced > Layout options and under compatibility options put a check in the box before Don’t use HTML paragraph auto spacing.

Pam

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Thanks–that’s just what I need, and I never would have found that on my own. I’ll have all my students modify their Normal.dot and get rid of a lot of confusion.

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Excuse my jumping in on this thread, but some of my users are on 2010 and I still use 2007, so I need to ask a related question. In the 2007 Paragraph dialog (I don’t believe it was in 2003) there is a “Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style” checkbox, which takes all of the spacing away. Is this option still around in 2010, and if so does it override the HTML spacing?

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Yes and Yes

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