When I copy and paste something into Word 2013, the Delete button does nothing in the sense of bringing a (I'll call it the second sentence) closer to the first.


Can one, two or three please advise as what I should do to make that work. Thanks!
(Remember please - do type slowly in order for me to understand)

If there are multiple space or tab characters after whatever you copied and the content is on the next line, the quickest way might be to select everything between the last character on the first line and the first character on the second line, then press the spacebar. If the gap remains, press Delete.

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

This might best be put into layman's terms. I do not see space or tab characters. Can you explain what I should do, understanding that I am less than a novice using this.

If you click on the ¶ symbol on the Ribbon's Home tab, you should be able to see all the formatting marks. Spaces will look like dots, tabs will look like arrows, line breaks will look like ↵ and paragraph breaks will look like ¶.

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

And then what am I to do - following your directions at first only makes the content disappear. Is there another way for me to overcome my dilemma?

Delete the space then. It will appear as a small dot or a small arrow.

Actually using the delete key does nothing. I can put the cursor on either one of those characters and hit the delete key and nought happens.

What kind of content are we dealing with (table cells, textboxes, frames, fields, content controls, something else)? If it's just sentences, as you've described, there shouldn't be an issue. As I said:
If anything more is being deleted, that suggests you're selecting more than you should be.

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

That's because it is impossible to select the space in between the two sentences without selecting either the beginning sentence &/or the last one.

Since your formula is not working, has anyone else got a suggestion.

What you're describing, then, sounds like to might have paragraph justification (i.e. both left & right margin alignments) on. Try clicking anywhere in the paragraph and pressing Ctrl-L.

PS: It's not a question of my 'formula' not working, but of trying to work with a rather vague description of the problem.

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

Paul, there is no doubt why you're not able to help me is my weird description of my problem.
Let me put this another way - let's say I got three sentences, spaced apart by an inch or so. I want to bring those sentences closer together. Usually, I put the cursor at the end of the first sentence and hit the delete and bingo, they'll come together.
I've copied & pasted these sentences. Not sure if this is doing something that won't permit me to bring them together, but the Ctrl-L doesn't do the trick either.

Hopefully my vast communication skills will come across this time to help you see what I'm *trying* to say. :-)

it would be easier to diagnose the issue if you could attach a document to a post with some representative data (delete anything sensitive). You do this via the paperclip symbol on the 'Go Advanced' tab at the bottom of this screen.

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

Here's an example of what I want to do - I will have two sentences,

1) There is a saucer hovering over the house


2) It's so close it's clipped the peak clean off the house
-------------

All I want to do or should be able to do is place the cursor right at the end of sentence # 1 and hitting the delete key, sentence # 2 should be brought up closer to sentence #1

It's when I copy and paste that I run into this problem. Surely there is a simple way to do this and I'm not getting it. Please advise and do type slowly in order for me to understand. Thanks!

Without knowing exactly what exists between the end of 1 and the start of 2, it's impossible to say what needs to be done to 'bring them together' because:
could mean that what you're pasting is inserted as a table, for example. That's why I asked you to provide a document with some representative data. There is no way I, or anyone else for that matter, could tell from your post - or even an image of the document - what the underlying data structures are.

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

Good. And you mean by "representative data" ... you might want to tell me what to do with that particular document before I post it up here in order for you to get what you're looking for.
Again, if I send just the document, you're not going to see what you need, correct? I'll await your reply. Thanks!