Hi baffled,

All Word document are based on templates. By default, Word uses its 'Normal' template. And that template's default Paragraph Style, which is also called 'Normal' has a default 10pt trailing space in Word 2007 & later. You can change these defaults if you want.

The fact you're getting inconsistent behaviour suggests you are not always creating your new documents the same way. If, for example, you're creating new documents from old ones, the formatting will adopt whatever Style formatting the old document had. Conversely, if you're creating your new documents by starting Word with a new blank document, the formatting will be based on whatever template the new document is based on and whatever default paragraph Style is defined for that template.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]