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Microsoft Word 2016 - Bullet points are adding random spacing

Anonymous
2017-02-22T23:11:32+00:00

Hi, I have a simple question that's been really frustrating me lately and I don't know how to fix it.

Problem: 

I am creating bullet lists that I want to be single spaced, but word is randomly making them double spaced, and after googling the problem I still don't know why. The problem is easily repairable by deleting the space in between the bullets, but I want to know why word is doing this and how to prevent it in the future to save time.

Details (hopefully helpful):

-My document is a series of bullets for notes. Each heading is normal text, each sub-heading is a bullet and then the notes for those sub-headings are sub-bullets (like bullets that are tabbed over under the first bullet). Each bullet list is separated by a single line. 

-I have saved the document and tried restarting word and my computer.

  • I have already tried going into paragraph settings and changing the spacing before and after to 0pt; changing the line spacing to single; and checking the "Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style" box. 
  • I have tried selecting the bullets and pressing ctrl+shift+s to open the styles box and then clicked modify. The style name is List Bullets, the style type is paragraph, the style is based on no spacing, and the style for the following paragraph is List Bullet.
  • I have tried clicking the paragraph symbol (ctrl+*) to show the hidden formatting symbols while having the styles pane open. What seems to happen is I'll have my starting bullet for a new section and then when I press enter to get a new bullet, word adds a paragraph symbol at the end of: the first bullet's content, on the next line, and after the new bullet. Also the new line between the 2 bullets has changed styles to List Paragraph. To clarify it looks like this (P = paragraph symbol, -> is the tab symbol I think (it's an arrow in word)):
  • ->text here (List Bullet style)P

                            *empty new line that is indented*(List Paragraph style)P

  • ->(List Bullet style)P

-One final thing I just realized while writing this is that if I let the bullet be double spaced and write some content for it, then have a new line and go and make a new bullet, the new bullet list will work fine. To clarify it looks like this (P = paragraph symbol, -> is the tab symbol I think):

  • ->text here (List Bullet style)P

                                        *empty new line that is indented*(List Paragraph style)P

  • ->text here(List Bullet style)P

                                        *empty new line that is indented*(List Paragraph style again here)P

(Normal style after deleting bullet)P

  • ->text here (List Bullet style)P
  • ->text here (List Bullet style back to normal with no spaces)P

I hope those are enough details, if anyone knows how to fix this and could tell me, I would really appreciate it.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-02-24T22:38:48+00:00

    Hi Stefan,

    Thanks for replying. I have already tried setting the style for the following paragraph to also be list bullet, but word seems to change the next line to list paragraph anyways and then changes it to list bullet right after that. So it looks like this after i press enter for a new list bullet:

    • List Bullet
      • List Bullet
      • List Bullet

    List Bullet (intentional new line without a bullet but is still considered list bullet style)

    • List Bullet

                   List paragraph with an indent(This is a randomly generated new line space)<----I want this random space gone

    • List Bullet

    Or without writing in the styles my document does this:

    • Text
      • more text
      • even more text
    • New text
    • Text with unintentional space between this point and the previous bullet

    I hope that clarifies things a bit better. If you have any other ideas to try, I would appreciate it!

    -Ian

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  2. Stefan Blom 342.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-02-24T23:51:29+00:00

    Can you post an example document that illustrates the problem? Upload it to (say) OneDrive or Dropbox, make the file public and post a link here.

    Note that pressing Enter twice doesn't really clear the numbering; it only suppresses the numbering (and leaves the style unchanged).

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  3. Stefan Blom 342.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-02-22T23:27:18+00:00

    If you are using the built-in List Bullet style, verify that its "Style for following paragraph" is set to "List Bullet":

    Also, note that List Paragraph is the style that Word applies to numbered and bulleted paragraphs unless you have picked some other style. You can set the Spacing Before/After to zero for that style as well.

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