Hello,



I have an 87 page manuscript that I need reformatted. Currently it has indentations (the writer hit "tab" at the beginning of each paragraph/piece of dialogue.) I need to remove those indentations but I also need a line of space between each of the paragraphs. Currently there is no extra space between these paragraphs.

For example I need to turn this (the underscores below are blank spaces in the manuscript... apparently I can't just start lines with empty space on the forum.) :

_____"He is the best stapler I've ever had in this office." Mrs. Lauter explained. She swirled her brandy without breaking eye contact. Her appraisal of Monsieur Poirot's office skills made every part of my body clench.
_____"I think you'll find that his stapling skills will be quite degraded once I remove his fingers." That response got her attention.


Into this:

"He is the best stapler I've ever had in this office." Mrs. Lauter explained. She swirled her brandy without breaking eye contact. Her appraisal of Monsieur Poirot's office skills made every part of my body clench.

"I think you'll find that his stapling skills will be quite degraded once I remove his fingers." That response got her attention.



I've played around with the "paragraph" feature under format and I've never been able to effect more than a few lines at a time. Additionally, I can't just copy the whole book and paste it as unformatted text because then I don't know where to insert the paragraph spaces without reading the whole thing line by line.

Assuming all the content is formatted in the same Style, simply find a non-indented paragraph of the same Style, format that paragraph with the required before/after spacing, then (assuming Macs support it) right-click on its paragraph break and choose Styles>Update [Style name] to match selection.

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

When you type a tab at the start of a line, depending on your optional settings, you could either have added an actual tab character or set a first line indent on the paragraph. So we aren't sure which of these is the case with your document.

Try selecting and pressing Ctrl-E and then Ctrl-L. This will centre align and then left align the text. Changing to centre alignment will automatically strip out the leading tabs or spaces on the paragraphs.

The paragraphs should be spaced out by editing the style to apply a paragraph space before (or space after). It is poor practice to use two paragraph marks where one can suffice.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia