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How do I change the default style in Word 365?

Anonymous
2016-05-10T14:20:04+00:00

I want my default style to come up as "No Spaces" rather than "Normal".

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-05-10T15:33:00+00:00

    Open your Normal.dotm template as a document (instructions below). Select the empty paragraph mark (visible if you click the ¶ button on the Home tab) and change its style to No Spacing.

    You should probably also go through all the other styles you use, such as the numbered Heading styles, and modify their definitions so that the "Style for following paragraph" is No Spacing instead of Normal.

    Save and close the template.

    After that, a new blank document will start with the first paragraph as No Spacing. Because that style's definition says that the "Style for following paragraph" is also No Spacing, it will continue to be the style until you apply another style. If you've changed the "following paragraph" for that other style, then the next paragraph will again be No Spacing.

    An alternative that behaves similarly is to go to the Design tab, click Paragraph Spacing, and choose No Paragraph Space from the menu. The default style will continue to be Normal, but it will have no space before or after the paragraph. Click the Save As Default button to apply the setting to the Normal.dotm template.

    ****

    Opening the Normal.dotm template as a document:

    • Press Alt+F11 to open the macro editor.
    • Press Ctrl+G to open the Immediate window in the editor.
    • In the Immediate window, type or paste the following line and press Enter:  NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument
    • Close the macro editor.

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  1. Stefan Blom 339.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-05-11T09:18:07+00:00

    As an alternative, you can change the default setting for Spacing Before and After. Later, if you decide that you need some spacing, apply some other style which has spacing larger than zero.

    Here's how to change the defaults: In the Styles pane (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S), click the Manage Styles icon. On the Set Defaults tab, set Spacing After and Spacing Before to zero. Make any other changes. Select "New documents based on this template" and then click OK.

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-10-07T02:38:03+00:00
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  3. Charles Kenyon 166.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-10-06T21:06:13+00:00

    If Stefan's method does not work for you, use the one proposed by Jay.

    How to Open the Normal Template

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-10-06T18:35:54+00:00

    Hi Stefan - this doesn't appear to work in Office/Word 2016. I've attempted to follow the above steps, and my default continues to be set at "Normal" when opening new Word 2016 documents. Any recommendations?

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