Weird space formatting in a .docx file

[AgateChristin]

So I work for a transcription company, and I was using Word for the past nine years working there. I recently lost access to it, so I decided rather than paying a sub to use LibreOffice. I recently created my first transcript in LibreOffice, with minimal issues. That is, until I finished and saved my work. Something occurred where there was weird spacing in between lines.

I looked at the formatting and indentation and nothing appears to have changed there. I’m unsure of what to do now and I’m panicking, basically (lol). Anyone have any advice?

[AgateChristin]

This is one of two screencaps I made that hopefully will better visualize what I mean. This one is what I want it to look like.

[AgateChristin]

And this one is how it turned out.

[Hrbrgr]

@AgateChristin

my first transcript

Did you really transcript or copy/paste it?

The screenshots don’t help much to make a statement, especially since you don’t have the formatting characters turned on.

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Please specify which operating system and which LibreOffice version you are working with and in which file format you are saving.

It is very helpful if you upload a file containing the problem here.

[AgateChristin]

There’s the version of LibreOffice I have installed.

As for uploading a transcript directly, can’t do that without getting let go.

[AgateChristin]

As for format, .docx

[Hrbrgr]

And I assume (unfortunately you didn’t tell us) that you copy the text and paste it into your document. If you work with LibreOffice, you should always save in native ODT format and only share copies as docx.

Read here why there may be compatibility problems:

How to open files from MS-Office 2007 or 2010 (.DOCX, .XLSX,…)?

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Try to persuade your employer to also use LibreOffice, which is free of charge.
Then the file and data exchange will also work.

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If you would like to learn more about LibreOffice, you can find the manuals here:

English documentation

[AgateChristin]

I’m sorry, I’m still new to this. Thank you for your time.

[Hrbrgr]

@AgateChristin

I’m sorry, I’m still new to this.

That’s totally OK.

[ajlittoz]

Your screenshots are even less useful because position of the cursor changed between the views.

The shot taken on 01:30:33 has the cursor on a “common” paragraph (in “DVD starts”) while in the 01:32:05 shot the cursor is in some numbered list item (which one? I could not find it).

Since you are using Writer to edit a .docx, conversion between DOCX and ODF formats has occurred. Depending on how you wrote your text in Word, it is possible that paragraphs are interpreted as members of a list while they should not. This may, in turn, imply changes in formatting depending on current list command configuration. It is impossible to tell without a sample file.

[mariosv]

Maybe some of the compatibility options:

[EarnestAl]

There is a difference in how Word treats spacing where it is specified for above and below paragraphs

• Word takes the biggest spacing and applies that
• Writer adds the spacing together which is why the spacing between paragraphs is double what you see in Word. To set this to the same as Word, in the screenshot by @mariosv untick the first box, Add spacing between paragraphs and tables. Or remove one of the spacings, the Above Paragraph Spacing is the one I would choose to set to zero.

The two documents are different and cover a large area so I wasn’t sure what the issue was until I put the images side-by-side at the same scale.

Note that the document when opened in Word would appear with the spacing that you expect, although there would necessarily be some repagination.