prevent last line from spreading across page in full justificatio.

[Gail]

In some documents, when I fully justify the document, the last line of the
paragraphs spreads out across the page and looks ridiculous. This does not
occur in other documents. How do I prevent this?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This indicates that your "paragraph" is ending with a line break
(Shift+Enter) rather than a paragraph break (Enter). Display nonprinting
characters (Ctrl+Shift+8) to verify this.

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

 

[Jay Freedman]

Select the text and press Ctrl+J to apply "justification". Do NOT press
Ctrl+Shift+J to applly "full justification", which also justifies the last
(or only) line of the paragraph.

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Version of Word? In Word2007, there are a whole lot of extra
justification settings, in the Home tab of the Ribbon. Alongside Left,
Center, and Right alignment, where you'd think the Justified button
would be, is a dropdown that offers you regular justification pluse
things labeled "low," "medium," and "high," and if they're explained
in Help, I haven't been able to find where. Finally, to the right of
_that_ button, there's _another_ button, called "Distributed," which
does what you're describing. (I don't think those last four options
are found in Word2003.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Ah, I missed the implication of "fully." I started to mention Ctrl+Shift+J,
but it's so rare that anyone actually runs across that that I decided not to
muddy the waters, especially since the OP can't see my reply, anyway.

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

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't have those options on the Home tab in Word 2007 (I have the usual
Justified button). I imagine they are available on the Ribbon only if you
have Asian languages enabled.

There is a Distribute Text command in Word 2003 and earlier (with the
keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+J, so it may well be that the OP has
inadvertently triggered that).

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

Version of Word? In Word2007, there are a whole lot of extra
justification settings, in the Home tab of the Ribbon. Alongside Left,
Center, and Right alignment, where you'd think the Justified button
would be, is a dropdown that offers you regular justification pluse
things labeled "low," "medium," and "high," and if they're explained
in Help, I haven't been able to find where. Finally, to the right of
_that_ button, there's _another_ button, called "Distributed," which
does what you're describing. (I don't think those last four options
are found in Word2003.)

 

[Peter T. Daniels]

Wow, those Japanese engineers sure were industrious. But it would be
nice if they'd given us their Help files, though.

Also, "Distributed" uses letterspacing within words on the non-last
lines. I think somewhere I sat an option to Never allow spacing within
words to improve justification (or maybe that was in FrameMaker), and
if so, Distributed doesn't pay attention to it.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I think somewhere I sat an option to Never allow spacing within

words to improve justification (or maybe that was in FrameMaker), and
if so, Distributed doesn't pay attention to it.

If you set such an option, it would likely be in the Compatibility Options
somewhere, but it more likely was in FrameMaker.

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

Wow, those Japanese engineers sure were industrious. But it would be
nice if they'd given us their Help files, though.

Also, "Distributed" uses letterspacing within words on the non-last
lines. I think somewhere I sat an option to Never allow spacing within
words to improve justification (or maybe that was in FrameMaker), and
if so, Distributed doesn't pay attention to it.