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Word 2013 paragraph spacing defaults to 19.2 spacing after

In Word 2013, from the Home tab, Paragraph group, dialog box launcher, Paragraph window, Indents and Spacing tab, I click Spacing, After box and replace 19.2 pt with 8 pt by typing an 8. I click OK and the dialogs close. Then I reopen them and the 8 pt is still there. I then click Set as Default a the bottom of the Font tab, All documents based on the Normal.dotm template, OK. I close and reopen Word and the 19.2 is back.

 

Does anyone know why the 8 pt will not hold?

Answer
Answer
Problems such as that one are usually caused by a poorly designed add-in interfering with saving changes to the Normal template. The problem must be troubleshot separately.

As a workaround, do the following to open the Normal template directly: From within Word, press Alt+F11 to display the Visual Basic Editor. Activate the Immediate window by pressing Ctrl+G. Type

NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument

and press Enter. Normal opens in a separate window (see the file name on the title bar). Close the Visual Basic Editor. Change the defaults the way you tried to earlier, save and close Normal.

[Edit: corrected a typo]           
Stefan Blom
Microsoft 365 Word MVP since 2005
Volunteer Moderator (Office)
MS 365, Win 11 Pro
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Please note that I do not work for Microsoft
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Answer
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Try opening the Normal.dotm template itself, and making the change there. Verify that you can save the change and have it take effect in new documents.

Because the Templates folder is hidden by default, the Normal.dotm template can be hard to find. The simplest method is to press Alt+F11 to open the macro editor, press Ctrl+G to open the Immediate window, paste in the following command, and press Enter:

NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument

Then you can close the macro editor and modify the spacing.

Instead of just modifying the spacing of the empty paragraph in the template, it's best to modify the default as follows:
  • Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S to open the Styles pane.
  • At the bottom of the pane, click the Manage Styles button (third from left).
  • In the Manage Styles dialog, click the Set Defaults tab.
  • Change the paragraph spacing (the "default of defaults" is supposed to be 8 pt After).
  • Because you're working directly in the template, it doesn't matter whether you choose "Only in this document" or "New documents based on this template".
  • Click OK.
  • Save and close the Normal.dotm template.
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Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 1,755 Applies to: