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Paragraph formatting essentials for unbreakable documents
(book excerpt)
| Applies to |
| Microsoft Office Word 2003 |
 |
This article was excerpted from Microsoft® Office Document Designer by Stephanie Krieger. Visit Microsoft Learning to buy this book and CD set, which includes the Microsoft Office Document Designer tool kit. |
In this article
Introduction
3 levels of formatting
Paragraph alignment and spacing options
Keyboard shortcuts
Wouldn't it be nice to know that your documents will always
look the way you intended, whether on screen, printed, or e-mailed? Well, one
of the best ways to guarantee the appearance of your documents is also one of
the easiest: strong, solid, simple paragraph formatting.
As you know, Word is all about keeping things simple. No
matter how complex your document's content, the least complicated solution to
any task will always give you more precise, impressive results than convoluted
workarounds that take three times the effort! A quick overview of paragraph
formatting provides one of the best examples of this core Word concept.
You might know that Word organizes most
document formatting into three levels (font, paragraph, and section). Paragraph
formatting, the second of these and the basic building block of most documents,
includes tasks such as paragraph spacing, line spacing, alignment, paragraph
borders and shading, bullets and numbering, and indents and tabs.
When you apply paragraph formatting to the text of your
document, Word stores it in the paragraph mark (¶) that falls at the end of
each paragraph. Why is this important for you to know? Well, if the formatting
of your text has ever changed when you moved it from one part of the document
to another (or between documents), formatting stored in a paragraph mark was
the reason.
Formatting can change if you move text into a paragraph that
contains different formatting. Notice, in fact, the formatting smart tags that
appear whenever you paste text from one location to another in Word. These
smart tags offer you the option to keep source
formatting or match destination formatting, which
refers to the formatting contained in the paragraph marks
at the copy source and the paste destination.
Want to be even smarter than the smart tags? Easy! To
steer clear of the complications of source and destination formatting, avoid
leaving empty paragraphs in your document (that is,
paragraph marks where there is no text). The best way to do that is to use spacing Before
or After the paragraph (find this under Spacing on the Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph dialog box, accessible from the Format menu,
Paragraph command) to automatically make space between
paragraphs when you press ENTER. Increase your paragraph spacing instead of
pressing ENTER multiple times for a new paragraph and you won't get any of
this:
Those ugly, empty paragraph marks aren't empty at all — they contain
lots of formatting that can get in your way.
For a strong document foundation, check out more helpful
tips on paragraph alignment and spacing options in the table that follows.
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| The action |
The recommendation |
Tips and more information |
|
Create space between
paragraphs
|
Use paragraph spacing before or after a paragraph to
create space between separate paragraphs.
Just go to the Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph dialog
box (Format menu, Paragraph command) and type the desired number of points (or use the
spin boxes to make a selection) in the text boxes labeled Before or After.
As a good rule of thumb, use 12 points before or after the paragraph when working with standard body
text (type that has 12 pt in either the Before or
After text box), to create a single line of space between your paragraphs.
Important Be sure to include
the pt when you type points before or after.
Otherwise, Word might convert your entry to a line setting that is not what
you intended.
Keep your document
simple to edit by keeping your formatting choices as consistent as possible
throughout the document. If you choose to use space before on some
paragraphs, try to stick with space before throughout. It will end up being
less work than switching back and forth.
|
You might be thinking, "Why
should I take the extra step to set paragraph spacing when I can just press
ENTER twice to get a new paragraph?" Well, think about this: Once
you set paragraph spacing, it stays set until you change it. So, it's a lot less work than manually making space between your
paragraphs with empty paragraph marks.
Paragraph spacing also gives you more control than extra
paragraph marks because you can set the space precisely. If you want half or
a quarter of a line between paragraphs, or multiple lines, just set whatever
you need. Even adjust paragraph spacing to suit your font size by changing
the number of points before or after the paragraph.
Use equal amounts of
space before and after the paragraph for text in table cells, to easily
center the text vertically within the cell and create the desired cell height
at the same time without having to set row height or cell alignment. (For
help formatting tables, see the tip sheet "You Don't
Have to be an Architect! The Pure and Simple Logic of Building Extraordinary
Tables," in Microsoft Office Document Designer.)
|
|
Create space between lines of the
same paragraph
|
Use the line spacing feature to create space between lines
of the same paragraph.
Access line spacing on the Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph
dialog box (Format menu, Paragraph command). By default, line spacing is set to Single. To
change line spacing, select a different option from the drop-down list
labeled Line spacing.
1.5 lines and Double line spacing are the obvious options.
When you select line spacing At least or Exactly, the text box beside the Line spacing
drop-down list reads 12 pt. Use the spin boxes to change the point setting,
or just type in the desired number of points. At least
12 pt means that lines of the active paragraph(s) will be no less than 12
points high, regardless of text size, so text in 8 point font will have 12
point line spacing, but lines of text in 24 point font will grow to
accommodate the font size. Line spacing Exactly, on the other hand, will keep
the line spacing to exactly the selected number
of points, regardless of font size.
|
If the top or bottom of text is cut off in paragraphs with a large font, line spacing set to Exactly is a likely cause!
Note Notice that there's a
difference between single line spacing on 12 point text and line spacing of exactly 12 points. Single line spacing adds buffer
space between lines. On the other hand, when you set exactly
12 point line spacing on 12 point text, the bottom of the text in the first
line of the paragraph will almost touch the top of text in the second line,
etc.
When you need to fit
just a little more text on one page, try decreasing your line spacing by
setting Exactly to just a point or two larger than your font size. The line
spacing will be less than single, so you'll get more room, but not so much
less that anyone will notice!
|
|
Align paragraphs horizontally on the
page
|
Select paragraph alignment options to align complete
paragraphs along the left or right margins, or centered between the two. Or,
select justified alignment for text that is equally distributed between the
margins so that each line of the paragraph (other than the last) is identical
in length.
To set paragraph alignment, either click in the desired
paragraph or select several paragraphs to format them at once. Then, click
the icon on the Formatting toolbar that
corresponds to the alignment you want, as shown here:
Or select alignment on the Indents and Spacing tab of the Paragraph
dialog box (Format menu, Paragraph command).
|
You don't have to push text over with indents, tabs, or
the ruler bar to change the alignment of a paragraph. A single click changes
the alignment for the whole paragraph at once (or several selected
paragraphs).
Note If your tabs or
indents seem off when you change paragraph alignment, that's because tabs and
indents are designed to work with left-aligned paragraphs. For more
information on setting indents and tabs, check out the tip sheet
"Do Your Paragraphs Measure Up?" (Microsoft Office Document Designer).
|
|
Start a new line within the same
paragraph
|
Use a line break (also called
a soft return) to force text to start on a new
line of the same paragraph.
Just place your insertion point where you want the line to
break and press SHIFT+ENTER.
When viewing formatting marks, a line break character will
look like this: 
|
Please don't use the spacebar or tabs to push text to a
new line of the same paragraph! It's too much work and never
works smoothly. The line break places one nonprinting character at the end of
the line and that's all. One step, perfect every time.
When lines of text
logically go together, simplify paragraph formatting by placing line breaks
instead of paragraph returns. The address information in
a business letter, for example, is a collection of single-spaced lines that
fall above the salutation, like so:
Since there is space before and after that group of lines,
use line breaks to separate them instead of paragraph marks, and just press
ENTER for one paragraph mark at the end of the group. That way, using the
example here, you have one set of formatting in one paragraph mark instead of four sets of formatting
for the same result.
|
Notes
- If you are unfamiliar with the three
levels of Word formatting, reading chapter 2 of Microsoft Office Document Designer will help you get more from this and
the other paragraph formatting tip sheets.
- For a quick look at everything in your document that's considered paragraph formatting,
turn on the Reveal Formatting task pane.
Learn more about this task pane in the tip sheet "The Long Document Heroes" (Microsoft Office Document Designer).
- If you don't see the paragraph marks
in your documents, click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Standard toolbar.
- Not familiar with paragraph marks and
other formatting marks (also called nonprinting characters)? Check out the tip
sheet "Making Your Word Documents Behave" or
chapter 2, both in Microsoft Office Document Designer for more information.
- For help with smart tags (including
formatting smart tags), see the tip sheet "Office Top Timesaving Tools" (Microsoft Office Document Designer).
-
Important Extra paragraph marks won't
substantially increase file size or use more memory, but they will make editing
the document more difficult, and if you're sending your document
electronically — well, those extra formatting marks just look nasty on screen.
And, using paragraph spacing before and after will save you time as well, so
why wouldn't you?
- Just because you can turn off formatting
marks in your view doesn't mean they're gone! If excess formatting marks — such
as empty paragraphs — exist in your document, anyone
who views your document electronically can see them by looking at your document
with formatting marks on. So, keep your readers' attention on the content instead of the formatting
by using formatting commands — such as paragraph spacing — in place of workarounds
like excess hard returns — for clean, sharp, impressive documents every time.
- Space before and after a paragraph can be
measured in points or lines. Since 12 points is the default font size, Word
thinks of a single, default line of space between paragraphs as 12 points
before or after. The tip document
Making your Word documents behave provides more
information about measuring in points.
- Though 12 points is default paragraph
spacing for a single line between paragraphs, a
single line of text in 12 point font is actually a little bit taller. Notice
that when you use the default — Single — line spacing,
a few points of space are added as a buffer between lines of the same paragraph.
- Recommendations like the tip under the
line breaks information might not seem to make much difference for isolated
instances. But they add up to saving you a lot of editing time and stress
later. Just in that one example, using one set of formatting in place of four
removes three possible pitfalls that would cause you extra work when the letter
needs editing later.
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Here are some keyboard shortcuts to use when formatting
paragraphs.
| Keystrokes |
Action |
|
|
CTRL+L, E, R, or J
|
Sets left, center, right, or justified paragraph
alignment, respectively.
|
|
CTRL+1, CTRL+2, or CTRL+5
|
CTRL+1 applies single line spacing to the active
paragraph(s), CTRL+2 applies double line spacing to the active paragraphs,
and CTRL+5 adds 1.5 line spacing to the active paragraphs.
Caution These keystrokes
only work from the main keyboard (the numbers that appear above the letter on
your keyboard) and not if you try to access the numbers from the number
keypad.
|
|
CTRL+SHIFT+C and CTRL+SHIFT+V
|
Keystroke alternatives to the Format Painter  .
(The first copies formatting and the second pastes it.) Format Painter is great — but these shortcuts are better
because once you copy formatting, you can paste it as often as you like until you copy something else, regardless of what you
do in between (other than exit Word).
|
|
CTRL+Q
|
Removes all paragraph formatting that isn't part of a paragraph style.
|
|
|
See the Keyboard shortcuts
topic in Word Help for a complete list of available shortcut keystrokes for
all features.
|
More information
Want some more basic instruction for some of the topics
discussed here? Try Word online Help.
Type either of the following online Help topics into the Type a question for help box on the right side of
the Word menu bar: Adjust line or paragraph spacing; About text alignment and spacing.
About the author Stephanie Krieger is a professional consultant, trainer, and writer who specializes in creating solutions with the Microsoft Office System. She helps clients customize software and design templates and also provides train-the-trainer services.
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