Problem with paragraph spacing in Word table styles

Question

I am having trouble with paragraph spacing for a table style (right click the table style, e.g. ‘table grid’ on the design tab of table tools -> modify table style -> button ‘format’ -> paragraph). With a clean normal.dotm (if you remove normal.dotm, Word will create a standard clean version on starting Word), the spacing before and after is 0 pt. The paragraph spacing of the Normal text style (on the home tab) for a clean normal.dotm is 0 pt before and 8 pt after. So, the paragraph spacing for a table is according to the spacing settings of its table style. If you change the spacing of the table style to, e.g. 12 pt before and 12 pt after, it will indeed affect the table (you will see the table change). I would like my tables to have no spacing, so I change it back to 0 pt before and after.

I do want to change the spacing of the Normal text style. As soon as I change this from 0 pt before and 8 pt after to 6 pt before and 6 pt after, it immediately also affects the spacing of the table style (you will see the table change). If you go back to the spacing settings of the table style, you will see it is still set to 0 pt before and after. Worse, whatever pt value you enter for before and after, it does not affect the table anymore.

This drives me mad. It seems that as soon as you change the paragraph spacing of Normal text style, the paragraph spacing of a table is ignored. I found no way to create tables with 0 pt paragraph spacing after modifying the standard paragraph spacing of the Normal text style from 0 pt before and 8 pt after to some other value.

I have this problem in the Office 365 versions of Word 2013 and Word 2016 (I did not test it in Word 2010). It seems to me this is a nasty bug or am I doing something wrong? Does anybody know a work around for this, so I can create table styles with 0 pt paragraph spacing, when using an updated normal text style? I can select the entire table, select the home tab, click the little arrow in the paragraph group and set the spacing before and after to 0 pt, but this way the spacing is not applied by the style. This is really not the way it should work; spacing should be correct directly after choosing the concerning paragraph style, just like the way it works when you change the table style paragraph spacing with the standard Normal text style spacing of 0 pt before and 8 pt after.

Answer 1

Indeed, as Suzanne wrote, the key to getting paragraph formatting to work for a table style is to make sure that the Normal style has the same settings as the document defaults.

Of course, the connection between the document defaults and the Normal style is far from obvious, but you can easily test it and convince yourself.

You'll find the document defaults on the Set Defaults tab of the Manage Styles dialog box (press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S to display the Styles pane and click the Manage Styles icon, and Word displays the Manage Styles dialog box).

To display the Modify Style dialog box, press Ctrl+Shift+S; in the Apply Styles pane, type in Normal and click Modify.

Answer 2

When you changed the spacing of the Normal style, did you also change the document defaults? I believe these have to be in sync in order not to affect table styles. See http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/145057-Style-behaviour-within-a-Table-(Word-2010) for more on this.

The Microsoft blog links in that thread are no longer valid, but you can find the referenced pages here:

Behind the Curtain: Styles’ Order of Operations

Behind the Curtain: Styles, Doc Defaults, Style Sets, and Themes

Answer 3

Thank you so much Suzanne! I already changed some default settings, but not... The paragraph spacing! As soon as changed the defaults conform the settings I use for the Normal style, the paragraph spacing for the table worked again and I was able to set it to 0 pt before/after. If these two things (Normal style and defaults) are so related, then I wonder why you are not able to set it up all from one dialog...

I think I stil found a bug though, but that is out of the scope of the original problem (which is solved now): with a clean Normal.dotm, the paragraph spacing for a table style is changed from 0 pt before/after to 6 pt before and 0 pt after as soon as you change the defaults from 0 pt before / 8 pt after to 6 pt before/after... I can't understand why this is related. Good thing is, when updating the defaults for spacing , this does actually update the spacing in style Normal!

Answer 4

Which table style are you using, specifically? You should be able to change the spacing in the table style.

Answer 5

In the example, I used the table style 'Table Grid' (that's the Word default). And yes, right clicking this style, select 'modify table style', click the format button and select 'paragraph', does allow me to change the spacing (and it is actually applied, now I have set the defaults according to the Normal style). But the problem is, I need to do this for all available table styles, because they are all based on 'Table Normal', which cannot be modified. If I was able to modify 'Table Normal', then I could change the paragraph spacing there and fix it for all table styles in one action.

I just doesn't make any sense: changing the defaults should not affect the paragraph spacing of a table style to a random value of 6 pt before and 0 pt after. I think this is indeed a bug. Because this has an enormous impact (all table styles are affected), I hope this will be fixed in a near future update.