MS Word problem

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MS Word problem

Colin Broadley 20

I am an archivist and i am 'recovering' old files from formats/programs that do not now exist. Most of the problems I can fix but I now have one that I can't.

"2)The Toft of ground & 4 acres of Arable & pasture 2 acres lyeing to the same called by the name of Clarks 1 meadow cbe 4 acres called Empshotts & 1 Moore called Hallimore contg 3 acres Abutting on the Common in Yly all which premises are situate lyeing and being in the parish of Yly afsd & now in the tenure or Occupation of the sd James Clarke & Joseph Taylor or 1 of them their or 1 of their assignee or Assigns."

I have the above paragraph. There is a line on my screen starting with the word 'acres' (after the '3' in the above) and ending with "the" in the third line above. After the word Yly (and one space) the rest of the line appears to be one line lower. (a bit like a subscript but all the letters are normal size not tiny). If I highlight the line, both parts get highlighted - as if the line is twice as high as all the rest. What may help is that my spell checker sees the word 'lyeing' as an error, but inserts the wavy red line above the word rather than underneath (as would be normal). So my spelling checker sees all the line on one level. All the rest of the paragraph displays normally. The spelling mistakes are not actually mistakes; this is a copy of an old document. If I click on a character in the 'lower' part of the line the cursor appears immediately above that character, where it should be.

Help, please.

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Abdelfattah Alwaseif 0 Reputation points

2026-05-11T12:32:59.3633333+00:00
What you describe strongly suggests that the line contains either:

hidden formatting codes from an obsolete word processor,

corrupted font metrics/baseline information,

or mixed character positioning (raised/lowered text) imported from an old format.

The key clues are:

the line behaves as a single line when selected,

spellcheck treats it as normal text,

the cursor appears “above” the lowered characters,

only one line is affected,

and part of the text displays on a lower baseline.

That usually means the characters themselves have a vertical offset applied rather than there being an actual second line.

Here are the most likely causes and fixes, in order of probability.What you describe strongly suggests that the line contains either:

hidden formatting codes from an obsolete word processor,

corrupted font metrics/baseline information,

or mixed character positioning (raised/lowered text) imported from an old format.

The key clues are:

the line behaves as a single line when selected,

spellcheck treats it as normal text,

the cursor appears “above” the lowered characters,

only one line is affected,

and part of the text displays on a lower baseline.

That usually means the characters themselves have a vertical offset applied rather than there being an actual second line.

Here are the most likely causes and fixes, in order of probability.
Colin Broadley 20 Reputation points

2026-05-12T07:20:36.0033333+00:00

Accepted - thanks

Answer accepted by question author

Answer recommended by moderator

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Your answer

Deleted

This comment has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The comment was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.
Abdelfattah Alwaseif 0 Reputation points

2026-05-11T12:32:59.3633333+00:00

What you describe strongly suggests that the line contains either:

hidden formatting codes from an obsolete word processor,

corrupted font metrics/baseline information,

or mixed character positioning (raised/lowered text) imported from an old format.

The key clues are:

the line behaves as a single line when selected,

spellcheck treats it as normal text,

the cursor appears “above” the lowered characters,

only one line is affected,

and part of the text displays on a lower baseline.

That usually means the characters themselves have a vertical offset applied rather than there being an actual second line.

Here are the most likely causes and fixes, in order of probability.What you describe strongly suggests that the line contains either:

hidden formatting codes from an obsolete word processor,

corrupted font metrics/baseline information,

or mixed character positioning (raised/lowered text) imported from an old format.

The key clues are:

the line behaves as a single line when selected,

spellcheck treats it as normal text,

the cursor appears “above” the lowered characters,

only one line is affected,

and part of the text displays on a lower baseline.

That usually means the characters themselves have a vertical offset applied rather than there being an actual second line.

Here are the most likely causes and fixes, in order of probability.
Colin Broadley 20 Reputation points

2026-05-12T07:20:36.0033333+00:00

Accepted - thanks

Answer 1

For future reference, the "space at the end of the first part of the line" could have been a paragraph mark, which stores paragraph properties such as line spacing, and these properties will affect the whole text paragraph. If there is also a space character, for example at the end of the text line, any overrides to the font size (for example) may also change the line spacing (for that whole line of text).

You can click the ¶ icon on the Home tab to show/hide nonprinting characters in the document. Pilcrows, ¶, represent paragraph marks, while dots represent ordinary spaces (degree signs represents nonbreaking spaces). See the screen shot below.

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Answer 2

Colin Broadley 20

I received an answer to my question that related to a mismatch of line spacing or font size. The provided solution did not work, but when I deleted the space at the end of the first part of the line, it did work.

Thanks for puting the idea into my head.

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