Office 2021: The spacing before "Heading 4" is not respected.


In the screenshot below, the spacing before "Heading 4" is not respected. The space shown in the screenshot is the space after the "Para 4" style but not the space before "Heading 4". In this case, I expected to have two spaces before "Heading 4": the space needs to be 12 + 12.

Attached Images

	Clip_1304.jpg (222.8 KB, 27 views)
	Clip_1305.jpg (218.5 KB, 26 views)

The space between two paragraphs is the GREATER of
- the "space after" on the preceding paragraph and
- the 'space before" on the second paragraph

In your screen captures, I believe a complicating factor is the Double line spacing. Is that case, the text has to sit 'somewhere' in a double space, does it sit at the top, middle or bottom of that 'double space'? Whatever the answer is, this will have an effect on the spacing to adjoining paragraphs which aren't also set to Double spacing.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

I tried different values for the "before" and "after" paragraph spacing but couldn't determine a specific rule for the behavior. I expected the line separating paragraphs to adjust according to the values set for the "before" and "after" paragraph spacing.

Attached Images

	Clip_1313.jpg (283.0 KB, 21 views)
	Clip_1314.jpg (150.1 KB, 21 views)

As Andrew pointed out, you need to take into account the Line Spacing for each paragraph as well. When the Line Spacing is set to "Single," it is easier to see the effects of different values for Spacing After/Before.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

In the "Normal" style, the paragraph has 8 points before and 8 points after, with single line spacing. The after spacing is applied, but the before spacing is not.
What could be the issue?
The file is attached.

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Clip_1388.jpg (220.6 KB, 15 views)

Attached Files

Sample_BeforeAfterSpacing_LineSpacing.docx (12.2 KB, 3 views)

See https://www.msofficeforums.com/183012-post2.html

It is unclear to me what the “before” and “after” paragraph spacing exactly represent relative to the paragraph separation line. From where is the “before” space measured? The “after” space? Are they measured from the paragraph separation line?

Attached Images

Clip_1390.jpg (283.7 KB, 15 views)

Space Before starts at the end of the previous paragraph.
If the previous paragraph has a Space After setting the two spacings overlap, in which case you will only see the difference between them highlighted when you select the paragraph, in your example: 20pt - 14pt = 6pt.

Thank you for the elaboration. It's much clearer now

Attached Images

Clip_1395.jpg (190.1 KB, 15 views)

To have Word add the Spacing After for a paragraph to the Spacing Before on the following paragraph, select the option "Don't use HTML auto paragraph spacing" at File > Options > Advanced. See the screen shot.

Attached Images

SpacingBehaviorWord.png (201.1 KB, 14 views)

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

To be frank, I couldn't visually discern the difference between having this option checked and unchecked, as shown in the screenshots below.

Attached Images

	Clip_1396.jpg (210.0 KB, 15 views)
	Clip_1397.jpg (215.0 KB, 14 views)

In your sample document, the difference is just 8 points between text paragraphs. See the comparison below.

Attached Images

dontaddspacingoption.png (221.1 KB, 13 views)

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional