Hard paragraph returns?

[Lola]

I sold many articles on cc a couple of years ago and have just returned to writing recently. I had my last article rejected for using "soft paragraph returns." I was told to use hard returns at the end of paragraphs and when double spacing.

I looked up what this meant, and it said to press enter instead of shift+enter at the end of a paragraph, but I always end paragraphs by pressing enter! Also, this was never a problem in my 30+ prior submissions.

Could someone explain this to me?

Thanks!

Lola

[Celeste Stewart]

If you changed from Word 2003 to 2007 or 2010, the default paragraph spacing has been changed. When you create a new paragraph in the new Word format, the spacing between paragraphs is an illusion. Word adds space between paragraphs rather than an extra blank line. While this looks fine in Word, when you copy and paste the text, the padding between the paragraphs disappears and you get one large chunk of text. The solution is to either hit enter twice so that a real space exists betweeen the paragraphs (it will look funny in Word as there will be too much space) or to change the paragraph spacing settings. In the Home tab, click the little box in the Paragraph section and make sure that the Before and After spacing sections both contain "o pt." Make sure that the line spacing is set to "single."

[Lola]

Thanks! That helps!