CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ms-wordopenxmlwordml
Stuart.Sklinar
Stuart.Sklinar

Reputation: 3761

Word Document spacing incorrect after conversion

When viewing a document (docx) in Compat-mode, and then viewing it after being converted to the "latest" format, the spacing in a certain area gets screwed up.

I've checked the Styles.XML file, and they both appear the same, however visually, they are very different.

Examples below - as you can see the first image has a much later "Before" Spacing, despite these both being set the same across both documents.

enter image description here

Ideas?

Viewing in [Compatability-Mode]

Viewing in [Compatability-Mode]

Viewing after Conversion to latest format

Viewing after *Conversion to latest format*

After looking at this in depth, I have concluded that this is a problem with how word calculates its word spacing.

When looking at the original document we can see the before and after spacing of the Date and Salutation section

enter image description here

On converting to the latest version of Word (even from Word itself), it appears to remove the 12pt spacing from the 22pt Before Spacing of the Salutation, and visually reduce this to 10pt Before Spacing;

We can add 12pt spacing which will result in the correct visual spacing, or we can reduce the Before Spacing to 12pt, to which it will then appear as if there is no spacing.

It appears to fix the issue, that the 12pt After Spacing needs to be removed from the Date, and added to the 22pt Before Spacing, resulting in a 34pt before spacing, which will present the same visual look.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 463

Answers (1)

scanny
scanny

Reputation: 29031

There's not enough information here to diagnose the situation conclusively, but I suspect a difference in the document defaults between the two documents. The document defaults can appear in the UI as attributes of a style that is not based on another style (such as 'Normal'), even though they are not defined that way in styles.xml.

The document defaults are located at the top of the styles.xml part, in the <w:docDefaults> element.

I see a similar behavior when I choose the 'Word 2010' "quick style". The 'Normal' style definition is unchanged, but the document defaults it inherits from have additional space after in the paragraph.

You'd be looking for something like this:

<w:docDefaults>
  <w:pPrDefault>
    <w:pPr>
      <w:spacing w:before="440" w:after="280" w:line="276" w:lineRule="auto"/>
    </w:pPr>
  </w:pPrDefault>
</w:docDefaults>

If that's not it, you'll need to provide more information on the style in use, its definition in styles.xml, and the chain of styles it is based on.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions