Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

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tommyzai
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Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

I'm trying to reduce the line spacing between paragraphs without changing the spacing withing the paragraph itself. Is there a way to do this globally? Thanks in advance for any guidance.

:?:
Attachments
Spacing Between Paragraphs is Too BIG.rtf
You'll notice the spacing between lines of text is not bad, but the spacing between paragraphs or sections is too big.
(19.78 KiB) Downloaded 329 times
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phspaelti
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by phspaelti »

Looking at your sample you do not have any spacing between paragraphs. You are actually using empty lines to make spacing between paragraphs.
The first thing you should do is to remove the empty lines. This can be done with Powerfind easily in one step.
Then you should set your paragraph style(s) to have a certain amount of "Spacing After (Paragraph)". You can do this either for the default style ("Normal" in your case), or you can do it for individual styles.
Finally if you still find individual cases to be unsatisfactory you can adjust them individually, overriding the style as necessary.

Here is my adjustment of your sample:
Spacing Between Paragraphs is Too BIG (adjusted).rtf
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Last edited by phspaelti on 2016-03-24 10:39:18, edited 1 time in total.
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martin
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by martin »

Hello Tommy:

In looking at the file you posted, I'm guessing you want to have your paragraph styles enforce spacing so that:

1. There is no space in the dialog, ie: no spacing between lines in the "Dialog" paragraph style.
2. There is spacing before and after the "Narrative" paragraphs, but without using an additional newline character.

You can achieve that by setting your Narrative style so it enforces both a before and after paragraph spacing, and then deleting the hard newlines. I'll attach the results of doing such a thing. I hope it helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.
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spacing.zrtf
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tommyzai
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

Thanks so much! I'll give the suggestions a go. True, I am using a blank space between. May I ask . . . is there a way to globally adjust the size of blank spaces? Either way, I probably should take the above advice in the future and allow spacing to be controlled by styles. I'm just so used to manually creating my own spacing. Thx!
tommyzai
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

Thank you both for the replies. It seems I need to use Powerfind to remove those spaces and then set up the paragraphs to have the desired spacing before and after. May I ask, any suggestion on how to remove all spaces via Powerfind?
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martin
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by martin »

tommyzai wrote:Thank you both for the replies. It seems I need to use Powerfind to remove those spaces and then set up the paragraphs to have the desired spacing before and after. May I ask, any suggestion on how to remove all spaces via Powerfind?
You can do this without PowerFind: just copy-paste two newlines from your document into the Find dialog, and replace them with a single newline. If you really want to use PowerFind, you could insert the newlines using the menu Special Characters > Return.
tommyzai
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

Uh oh! I just used the find and replace to remove all blank lines and made a mess. It seems using the space bar to create space is coming back to bite me. I attached my mess . . . it shifted some paragraphs into other styles. Thanks for your patience. I am grateful for any and all guidance. I need to find a way to get this sorted out. All of my 200+ lessons need to fit on one A4 page, and at present they go over by about 15 to 20%. The font is already 11pt, which is a bit smaller than ESL learners like. Ohhh!
Attachments
Spacing Experiment.rtf
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tommyzai
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

Philip, On a side note . . . . does the Japanese in my lesson make any sense (assuming your read Japanese)? I used a translator, and often they create awkward sentences.
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martin
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by martin »

tommyzai wrote:Uh oh! I just used the find and replace to remove all blank lines and made a mess.
It looks like you accidentally replaced all newlines with nothing. You want to replace all double returns with *single* returns. You'll want your Find & Replace dialog to look like this:
doubleReturn.png
doubleReturn.png (49.96 KiB) Viewed 10788 times
Or if you're using PowerFind:
doubleBubble.png
doubleBubble.png (52.59 KiB) Viewed 10788 times
tommyzai
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

Fantastic! All lines are removed. Forgive me for asking, but may I ask for some tips on adjusting the styles to create some space. I'm not sure how to go about this. I do know where to find the style edits, but not sure where the rest is. I'm concerned that adding space before and after would double up spacing where paragraphs meet.
Vanceone
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by Vanceone »

So this is usually done by using either the "space before paragraph" or space after; I usually set it to like 6 points or so.

Most programs that use styles do it this way, and Nisus is no exception. They also intelligently manage cases when you have both before and after spacing, so that it's not doubled up and so forth.
tommyzai
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

Vanceone wrote:So this is usually done by using either the "space before paragraph" or space after; I usually set it to like 6 points or so.

Most programs that use styles do it this way, and Nisus is no exception. They also intelligently manage cases when you have both before and after spacing, so that it's not doubled up and so forth.
Hi!! I opened up the edit page for my main style called "narrative." Under Tools/T/Paragraph I found Spacing, but when I increase the before or after is seems to also stretch-out the lines within the paragraph itself. I don't know if Multiple or Fixed or Key paragraph together or Keep with next will help.
Vanceone
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by Vanceone »

I was puzzled for a moment, then I figured it out.

If you are on the edit style section, there are only a few lines of text in the preview box... and they are all separate paragraphs, so indeed it would like it's moving lines around. It's one of my little annoyances with Nisus that this pane doesn't include paragraphs with more than one line of text so you can actually test out some of this spacing stuff.

Still: Just type or paste in some text that is actually more than one line long (I suggest at least three lines long). I'd make two or three paragraphs. Then the before and after spacing stuff will show what is really happening.
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phspaelti
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by phspaelti »

tommyzai wrote:Philip, On a side note . . . . does the Japanese in my lesson make any sense (assuming your read Japanese)? I used a translator, and often they create awkward sentences.
Do you think you can trust my Japanese? :wink:

But I have to say that it's time to get a better translator. (I hope you didn't pay for this "service".)

Here would be my suggestions for the two sentences in your sample:
TOUR GUIDE: 皆さん、昼ごはん美味しく召し上がりましたか?
TOUR GUIDE: さあ、今からFilmを見に行きましょう。

Of course in Japanese the word "Film" wouldn't be used here. So the tour guide is using an actual English word for some reason. The Japanese word for film/movie is 映画. The borrowed word フィルム refers to the celluloid stuff you put in analog cameras only.
philip
tommyzai
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Re: Adjusting Line spacing between paragraphs, but not text?

Post by tommyzai »

It worked! Thank you ALL! I attached a file. It looks much better. I'm very grateful. The responses helped me through this. I can now move on. THX!!!
Attachments
SCENE 6. TOUR.rtf
(27.82 KiB) Downloaded 310 times
Last edited by tommyzai on 2016-03-25 10:25:14, edited 3 times in total.
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