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Setting Even Number of Lines at Bottom of Each Manuscript Page

Anonymous
2019-03-13T05:48:44+00:00

I am formatting a book manuscript in Office 365 Word. I need to ensure that each page contains exactly the same number of lines on each page, e.g., 30 lines on page 1, 30 lines on page 2. Except, of course, at the beginning and ending of a chapter. 

I literally waited a total of 5 hours tonight to receive help from a Level 2 tech support. They missed a "guaranteed" appointment between 8:30 pm and 10:30 p.m. (US Eastern).  I called and went through 2 Level 1 reps. The second one promised a Level 2 tech would call back--at 11:38 pm. At 1:25 a.m., I gave up and called back--AND LEARNED THE OFFICE WAS CLOSED. And no one bothered to come on the line and tell me that. 

So, can anyone in the community help me with a straightforward way to ensure an equal number of lines per page? 

I could jerryrig a solution by going page by page and moving lines around with back spaces and cut and paste, but it is over 300 pages long. I tried this solution and the first 20 pages took 30 minutes of frustration. I guess if I had kept plugging away at this method, rather than wait for Amazon, I might be done by now. OR I might have totally screwed up the formatting and pagination for the manuscript. 

Any ideas! Thanks very mjch!

Robert L. Perry

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2019-03-13T06:58:43+00:00

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-03-13T06:41:23+00:00

    Effectively, you are at the mercy of the particular printer driver that is configured for Word - if you set it up perfectly on one machine, there is a chance that another machine displays the same thing with a different number of lines. If you HAVE to have it exact, you should set up the document and then export a copy to PDF (using Save As).

    To set up the document, you would need to configure the style used for the body text to have zero space above and below the paragraphs and turn OFF the paragraph settings for widows and orphans, keep lines together and keep with next.

    Ensure this style is the ONLY style used for your body text and select all and press Ctrl-Q to ensure the paragraph spacing of every paragraph matches the style settings.

    Now, turn on line numbers and check the number of lines on a page that is full of text (other than the first/last page of a chapter). If the number is greater or less than 30, fiddle either the line spacing on the style or the size of the top/bottom page margins. Once you are happy with the line count, turn off the line numbering and save the document. Export it to PDF to be sure the number of lines doesn't change when someone else opens the document.

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  3. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2019-03-13T12:16:33+00:00

    My article “Improvingthe bottom line: toward a more uniform bottom margin,” which Doug referenced, explains the various factors involved in ensuring uniform pages, but, as Andrew suggests, the active printer driver is one of those factors.

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