Microsoft Office Forums

Go Back   Microsoft Office Forums > >

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 06-01-2016, 08:53 AM
pawl pawl is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 10 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2016
Novice
How to remove hidden paragraphs
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 6
pawl is on a distinguished road
Default How to remove hidden paragraphs


Hi!

First, I am not an experienced Word user, so the answer may be obvious and I simply don't see it, but I am working on a document that is a mixed bag of old and new versions of Word. On the several pages there appears, when I select the paragraph dropdown menu, hundreds of hidden (appear grey in the Preview window) "Paragraph" one after another, that force some [now] unwanted spacing—huge chunks. I can't seem to find the way to remove this white space. Any tips on this? And also, I'd like to find a way of removing the old mixed up versions in the doc and streamline it to Word 2016 that we're using in the office now.

Thanks so much in advance for any assistance.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 06-01-2016, 09:12 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 8 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2013
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
Posts: 9,082
Charles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant future
Default

Do these hidden paragraphs print (take up space when you print)?

Old and new versions of Word? Which versions? How Word sets up pages and formats text has not changed much in 20 years.

Are these grey areas headers or footers? What happens if you double-click in one? Does a header or footer editing area open?
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 06-01-2016, 09:22 AM
pawl pawl is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 10 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2016
Novice
How to remove hidden paragraphs
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 6
pawl is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon View Post
Do these hidden paragraphs print (take up space when you print)?

Old and new versions of Word? Which versions? How Word sets up pages and formats text has not changed much in 20 years.

Are these grey areas headers or footers? What happens if you double-click in one? Does a header or footer editing area open?
They do indeed take up space when printed. I was told that the doc has mixed versions. There is a header and footer consistent through the doc, but these are neither, though in the Preview window I see the header series of grey "Paragraph..." looks the same as those in the body of the misc pages. In fact, now that I look at it, it appears to be that the formatting is selecting to skip to subsequent pages when a new section of paragraphs take up more space than is available on a page.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 06-01-2016, 09:50 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 8 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2013
Moderator
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
Posts: 9,082
Charles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant futureCharles Kenyon has a brilliant future
Default

Word versions. There are essentially two types of Word documents. Those from the menu versions (Word 2003 and earlier) and those from the Ribbon versions (Word 2007 and later). The second type is considered more secure and stable.

I cannot figure out your problem without actually seeing a document. You can attach a sample with such paragraph marks to this forum. To do that, click on the Go Advanced button at the bottom of the message window. Click on the paperclip icon to attach a file. You can take out any proprietary or confidential information before you do this.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 06-02-2016, 08:55 AM
pawl pawl is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 10 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2016
Novice
How to remove hidden paragraphs
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 6
pawl is on a distinguished road
Default

Thank you Charles. It's not a doc I can make public, alas. And I tried to change text and it messes everything up. I'll keep trying to research this issue. Otherwise I'll remove all formatting and rebuild the 40 pages.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 06-02-2016, 04:54 PM
Guessed's Avatar
Guessed Guessed is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 10 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2013
Expert
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Canberra/Melbourne Australia
Posts: 3,932
Guessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant future
Default

To clean up your document, the first couple of steps are:
1. Make sure you are not tracking revisions
2. Remove any section breaks. I do this with a find and replace but you can do it manually if you wish.
The grey areas you talk about are most likely headers or footers so step 2 may have solved that problem. If the grey returns remain then they could be simply formatted with a colour. You can remove empty paragraphs by find/replacing ^p^p with ^p but you will need to do this multiple times if there are large blocks of empty paragraphs since you are halving the count each time with that replacement.
__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 06-02-2016, 10:29 PM
macropod's Avatar
macropod macropod is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 7 64bit How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2010 32bit
Administrator
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Canberra, Australia
Posts: 21,956
macropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Guessed View Post
You can remove empty paragraphs by find/replacing ^p^p with ^p but you will need to do this multiple times if there are large blocks of empty paragraphs
Or you can use a single wildcard Find/Replace, where:
Find = [^13]{2,}
Replace = ^p
__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 06-05-2016, 02:29 PM
pawl pawl is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 10 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2016
Novice
How to remove hidden paragraphs
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 6
pawl is on a distinguished road
Default

No luck at all in the suggestions, though thanks all the same Guessed and macropod.


Also, am including some screen shots of draft mode view and document map side by side. (Strange that some of the numbers/letters of sub paragraphs are missing. And I'm not sure if the lines/dots along the left sides of the views help explain the strangeness.)

Thanks again in advance for your consideration.

Pawl


Last edited by pawl; 06-06-2016 at 08:31 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 06-05-2016, 03:40 PM
macropod's Avatar
macropod macropod is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 7 64bit How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2010 32bit
Administrator
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Canberra, Australia
Posts: 21,956
macropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond reputemacropod has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by pawl View Post
No luck at all in the suggestions, though thanks all the same Guessed and macropod.

I've managed to scrub the first ten pages of the document and am loading them here in hopes that this might still interest some help. Leasesouth-scrubbed.docx And thanks Charles for your time.
If you mean the white space at the bottom of the first page, for example, that has nothing to do with empty paragraphs or anything of the kind. Rather, it's a consequence of your use of 'keep with next' and 'keep together' paragraph settings. I suggest you remove those for the entire document and only apply them where you need to keep content together at an automatic page break - or insert manual page breaks beforehand.
__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 06-06-2016, 08:27 AM
pawl pawl is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 10 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2016
Novice
How to remove hidden paragraphs
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 6
pawl is on a distinguished road
Default

Hurrah!!! It's solved, thanks to you Paul Epstein. Here's why it remained so elusive to me. When I went into the paragraph settings these items were unchecked. What I failed to understand was that they were unchecked when nothing was selected. When I hit the CtrlA and then checked the paragraph settings, there were solid, so when I checked each box twice (first time changed to a check mark, then empty), I found the doc as I wanted it.

In retrospect, most people who have taken the time to take a tutorial on Word would know that the settings window does not indicate the entire doc, but just the point where the cursor lies—I think I have that correct. But I tend to jump into things and tutor myself, with help from experts. Lazy way, maybe, but I then tend to pay the price in stalls and detours.

Lesson(s) learned. Thanks again!

Pawl
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 06-06-2016, 10:57 PM
eNGiNe eNGiNe is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 7 32bit How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2010 64bit
Expert
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brussels [BE]
Posts: 746
eNGiNe is on a distinguished road
Default

I'll add this reference just for anyone who finds the same thread when struggling or confused …

Quote:
you will sometimes see a small black bullet • in the margin next to a paragraph.
This indicates that the paragraph is formatted with the “Keep with next,” “Keep lines together,” “Page break before,” or “Suppress line numbers” property.
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/NonPrintChars.htm
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 06-08-2016, 02:47 AM
pawl pawl is offline How to remove hidden paragraphs Windows 10 How to remove hidden paragraphs Office 2016
Novice
How to remove hidden paragraphs
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 6
pawl is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by eNGiNe View Post
I'll add this reference just for anyone who finds the same thread when struggling or confused …



http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/NonPrintChars.htm
Grateful for the reference.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
How to remove hidden paragraphs unhide hidden row carlandtina02 Excel Programming 7 03-14-2016 02:26 PM
How to remove hidden paragraphs VBA to keep hidden rows hidden when filtering tectonicseer Excel Programming 1 07-27-2014 11:54 AM
Grouping paragraphs h.ridinger Word 2 11-06-2013 10:42 AM
How to remove hidden paragraphs Hidden style applied over already-hidden text. christie Word 1 08-17-2011 09:10 AM
finding paragraphs sixhobbits Word 2 06-14-2010 09:48 AM

Other Forums: Access Forums

All times are GMT -7. The time now is 11:30 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Search Engine Optimisation provided by DragonByte SEO (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
MSOfficeForums.com is not affiliated with Microsoft