I have a boilerplate document that is essentially a one-cell table. The default paragraph style has 3 pts "space after" in order to have space between paragraphs but it also leaves 3 pts of dead/white space after if at the bottom of the cell. I'm looking for a way to automatically have 0 pts "space after" if the text is at the bottom of the cell.

Modify the style to have 3pts space before instead of 3pts space after. Then edit the table properties to remove the internal top margins if necessary.

Thanks, but that didn't work. My cell margins are already 0 at top and bottom.

As a result of Word's complex hierarchy of styles and formatting, you may get incorrect text formatting in a table cell if the document default settings do not match the Normal style. This applies even if you are not using Normal style for the text in your table.

Do the following: In the Paragraph dialog box, set the desired Line Spacing and Spacing Before/After. Change other options if you want. Click the Set as Default button. Choose the "This document only" option.

Do the same with the Font dialog box (Ctrl+D). Set the desired font and size. Click the Set as Default button. Choose the "This document only" option.

Save your document.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

There isn’t a way to automatically remove the space after, whether in a table or anywhere else in a document. Your only options are to manually remove the space after, or use a different style for the last paragraph.

That only applies to text formatting that is part of a table style.

Word is configured to remove space after in tables if the table is inserted in a paragraph formatted with the document defaults.

Use of any other style will override the settings of the table style.

The OP’s issue is that they want the space after for all but the last paragraph of the cell, and there isn’t an automatic way of removing that.

Hi Italophile,

I mentioned the conflating of document defaults and the Normal style because it may have a substantial impact on the formatting inside a table cell. Text formatting inside a table may originate from the table style itself or from Normal or from an explicitly applied paragraph style. Setting the doc defaults identical to the Normal style is the only way to ensure that Word applies the correct, desired formatting, from the selected "source."

That said, I slightly misread the question. Your observation is correct, of course: There is no way to automatically remove the Spacing Below for the last text paragraph in a table cell.

The solution is to either apply a specific style to the last text paragraph in the table cell or to not make use of Spacing After in any paragraph style that you use in the table. (There mustn't be any Spacing After set in the table style itself, either, obviously.)

Setting the Spacing After to zero is what you suggested initially.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Hi Kevin,

Did you also look at the Spacing After setting for the text, as Italophile suggested?

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional