To space things vertically the obvious thing is to just enter a newline, however that seems to always be a logical paragraph, and my style has space above a new paragraph as is normal. Is there a way to have a vertical newline that’s not a logical paragraph, so that it’s a bit narrower? Perhaps 3/4 of text line height?
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Paragraphs? Rows in a paragraph?
Have you tested with line spacing? Or with spacing above and/or below paragraph?
Indents and Spacing
You can test/modify them in the Paragraph section of the Properties sidebar.
That’s just the problem, my spacing before a paragraph is just what I like, but sometimes I just want to add a little bit of vertical space without it being via a paragraph because that’s too much space. In physical terms a paragraph adds the height of a text line, plus the extra space. I want quite a bit less than that. I don’t want to change my paragraph style, it’s fine as it is, this spacing is something separate.
So, use Spacing below paragraph.
This is a totally faulty workflow. Notwithstanding the wrong logic in it, you’ll inevitably meet circumstances where the empty paragraph will break your layout (when it is flushed to next page after edits), thus forcing you to manually check all pages to detect spacing anomalies.
Your paragraphs belong each in a defined semantic category: heading, main topic, comment, note, citation, … which are rendered accordingly (font facr, size, weight, colour, left/right indent, spacing before and after, …). If you feel that some paragraph need a different spacing, this means this paragraph belong in a different category nd you must create a different dedicated paragraph style.
I remind you that a well-structured document does not contain any empty paragraph. Empty paragraphs are layout killers which drive you to formatting hell.
There is however an exception to this rule. All text flows making up a document contain at least one paragraph and some flows may be made principally of non-text, e.g. think of a cartouche in a header. In this case the mandatory paragraph is only a host for the table. My solution is to apply a style with 0 spacing above/below and font size 2pt (the absolute minimum in Writer).
I agree. I’m trying to avoid the empty paragraph and get my bit of vertical space some more legitimate way. But I don’t want to change my paragraph style. I’m guessing I need some sort of new object or style, but how to add it?
I believe from an earlier question that you want a full line spacing between paragraphs, e.g. for 12 pt font you want 12 pt between paragraphs. You could split the 12 pt so you have 6 pt above the paragraph and 6 pt below the paragraph. This means that a different following paragraph style could be only 6 pt below the previous paragraph.
No, I don’t want to change my paragraphs at all. But there are situations in various tables where I want a slight space between two rows. Now, I can add a newline inside a cell, and that forces a new row visually, but it’s too wide. I know that the newline isn’t really what I want. I don’t want to touch paragraphs or use paragraphs here, I want a slight vertical space by some more kosher method.
The vital information was missing.
So the contents of table is normally paragraph style Table Contents and by default it has no spacing above or below and is set to single line. You could adjust this paragraph style to have 1.15 line spacing.
Or
You could select the table, click Table > Properties > Border, under Padding make sure that Synchronise is ticked, then set one of the fields to 0.05 cm. OK
The vital information was missing.
I’m converting my text tables to real tables, so my mind isn’t fully tabularized quite yet 
That’s a way of hacking it. See the narrower height of the spacer line? I repeat I don’t want to change my paragraph style, I just want these occasional spacers. I did it by typing something and then formatting the text smaller three times. then erasing the text leaving just spaces. It works but it’s a bit clumsy. Once more, I don’t want to change my paragraph style. I want occasional narrow lines as spacers.
Those are table headings, why not modify the Table Heading style to suit your current layout but give some spacing below the Table Heading and then delete the empty row?
TableHeadingSpacing.odt (13.4 KB)
Because there are ad hoc places where I need the spacer, it’s just sometimes that it’s attached to a heading. MInd … I’m not using Table Headings yet, so that’s got to be done as well. But I’ll want the spacer anyway. Can I make a style which will be just very short spaces? Gotta say it was a lot of work understanding how to use tables, but now that I’m more or less up and running, it’s sure powerful.
You could, I wouldn’t if I could possibly help it.
- Right click Default Paragraph Style or Table Contents style and select New
- In the dialogue, select General tab and give it a relevant name, e.g. Spacer
- Select the Font tab and choose a suitable font size, e.g. 6 pt. OK
- Select the paragraph or the table row and then double click the Spacer paragraph style.
In that case, in the Text Flow tab you should tick the box Keep with next paragraph.
I would use another Heading n style for the bigger space rather than the patchwork above.
Ideas_for_lines.odt (52.2 KB)
This is a collection of my ideas for lines: paragraph border, fill character of tab stop, drawing object line, set of single characters. It depends on the individual solution how to specify a distance before and/or after.
Thanks both, I’ll experiment with those ideas tomorrow.
Moving right along. Suggestions implemented gentlemen. Small hitch tho:
My modified ‘Table Heading’ works fine here: underlined, centered and with the space I want underneath.
… but this is the same style:
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… it won’t center and it won’t make the vertical space (so I have a paragraph in there for now.
Thoughts?
Do you want the Caption inside the table? Normally it is above the table, the Caption paragraph style includes in the Text Flow tab Keep with next paragraph so it won’t get separated from the table by a page break which might happen if the caption is inside the table and the table can break across rows.
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Your Table Heading should be the row starting with Scenario
Is the paragraph style applied? If so and you don’t get the expected results, you have direct formatting. DF always takes precedence over styles. DF is a real nuisance. On sophisticated and long-term updated documents, you must follow a very strict styling methodolgy without DF.
Your Table Heading should be the row starting with Scenario
I’m learning as I go. No idea what correct style is yet. I have it in there mostly just to see if I can do it.
you have direct formatting.
Nope, I purged the line. I’m in the habit of doing that automatically now any time there’s trouble.
Is the paragraph style applied?
Not sure what you mean. I applied ‘Table Heading’ as with everywhere else, and everywhere else it’s fine.
I wish it was possible to take a deep look into … well I’m thinking back to WP ‘Reveal Codes’ again … guess that’s not really possible with Styles paradigm, still I wish I could ‘see’ what’s going on.
…
I deleted the row, recreated it, and now it’s fine. Perhaps that’s a new surgery: if Clear Direct Formatting doesn’t do it, kill the row, recreate and it should be fine. But EarnestAI says it shouldn’t be in there anyway.
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… another mystery: The ‘8-8’ line is a heading. Then the table. But I have my table style set to ‘0.2 Above’ but the table seems not to grab any space above itself. I appreciate that there’s a rigorous logic to all this, but it’s a steep learning curve. I’m trying to be a good boy and not put an empty paragraph in there.