Spacing problems

[zeldazerafa]

Hi all,
I'm new and yet to have an article accepted. There seems to be an issue with spacing, amongst other things. I write in Word and I have enough spacing between paragraphs but the editors are saying that the spacing is not appearing at their end. I don't understand. Also, when I cut and paste into the article box, the spacing isn't there and I have to go over it again. Surely, when the editors open my Word doc the spacing is as it looks to me?

[Celeste Stewart]

It's a Word thing. Word 2007 automatically adds "space" between paragraphs but this space isn't a true extra line. It's an illusion. Word creates this illusion by adding space before or after a paragraph, usually in 6 or 12 points of font. So, when you copy and paste the text into other word processors or forms, that space often disappears as it's not a real line and isn't recognized by the new software. Even if the editor sees the so-called space as you do, there's the problem of the customer who must copy and paste the text into his website. When he does so, the spacing will disappear and he'll have a big chunk of text with no clear paragraph breaks.

To solve this, you'll need to go into your paragraph settings section of Word and change the "Before" and "After" spacing settings to read '0 pt' each. This will force you to press the enter button twice between paragraphs in order to get the blank line between them. In Word 2007, this is on the Home tab. Find the Paragraph section and click the tiny little square with the arrow in it. This will open the Paragraph dialog box where you can make the change. Before you do, highlight all of the text in your document so that your changes apply to everything.

[zeldazerafa]

Thanks for the tip. I did as you said and the text came all as one piece after I highlighted it and made the changes you said. Do I need to press Enter once or twice after that, to make it acceptable? It looked ok to me when I pressed Enter once; it returned to looking as it did before, with the 'fake' spacing.

[zeldazerafa]

I have re-read your answer and understand that I should press twice so that it looks like this (as in fact it did with the 'fake' spacing in place):

Reasons for Bla Bla

When the bla bla is a bla bla

[Celeste Stewart]

Yes, press enter twice to get the space there.