Paragraph spacing: effect on anchored images

[stman]

I just discovered that when you set “Space After†in a paragraph, this
spacing eliminates any required “Space Before†from the next paragraph. For
example, I have two consecutive paragraphs, each with a space before or 10
pt. You can see the space before when you select the paragraph: the
highlighting includes 10 pt above. If I then add “Space After†in the first
paragraph to 10 pt, I would expect the second paragraph to move down by 10
pt, but it doesn’t move at all. If I change this “Space After†to 11 pt, the
second paragraph moves down 1 pt. So the space before of the second paragraph
is consumed as space after in the first paragraph is added.

This might not appear to be a big deal, and I see how this can be useful, as
spacing before and after don’t add up to create unrealistic spacing. But this
creates the following problem:

I often use small images (icons) in the margin to the left of paragraphs.
The images are floating (In Front of Text), with a vertical alignment of “Top
Relative to Lineâ€. This locates the top of the images 10 pt above the line,
since my paragraph style has 10 pt spacing before, and all’s fine.

However, when a paragraph having one of these images follows a paragraph
with plenty of “Space Afterâ€, such as my Caption style which has 18 pt, the
10 pt of “Space Before†in my image paragraph is eliminated, and the image
does not line up vertically with the paragraph as it used to. It aligns flush
with the top of the paragraph because the paragraph has no more space before.

I’m looking for a workaround. I’d like to keep these images vertically
aligned with it’s paragraph regardless of what comes before the paragraph.

Thanks.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Select the "Don't use HTML paragraph auto spacing" compatibility option for
the current document. Word will sum spacing after and spacing before instead
of choosing the largest value.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Although the default in Word 2000 is to combine Space After and Space Before
(using just the larger of the two), you don't have to accept this: in Tools
| Options | Compatibility, check the box for "Don't use HTML paragraph auto
spacing."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[stman]

Holy mackerel, that's it! One single check box does it. And I thought a
solution would be such a long shot.

Thanks to both of you.