Paragraphs starting unevenly. I'm losing my mind.

[Rayneworks]

Hello there. I'm sort of at my wit's end here, as I absolutely cannot figure out why this is happening. I've got it set to Justified, I've got auto hyphenation turned on. I'm bloody clueless. I'll post an example.

yDqUBvl.png (8.6 KiB) Viewed 1316 times

All the paragraphs are started with two spaces, but the actual spacing of them varies from very slight to almost a centimeter. It is so ugly and I cannot stop it from happening. I feel like I've tried everything, but I KNOW that there's got to be something simple that I've missed.

I really hope someone here can help me because I'm about to go completely barmy. Thanks for any help.

[robleyd]

G'day and welcome to the forum.

Whilst your image shows what is happening, it doesn't show why it is happening. Please upload a Writer (.odt) file that has this problem so we can see what is going on.

[Forum] How to attach a document here Note maximum file size is 128K. If your file is larger, use a file sharing site such as Mediafire and post the link here. The link also contains information on how to anonymise your document if it contains confidential information.

[Rayneworks]

G'day and welcome to the forum.

Whilst your image shows what is happening, it doesn't show why it is happening. Please upload a Writer (.odt) file that has this problem so we can see what is going on.

[Forum] How to attach a document here Note maximum file size is 128K. If your file is larger, use a file sharing site such as Mediafire and post the link here. The link also contains information on how to anonymise your document if it contains confidential information.

Not a problem, here's an example file that's doing the same thing. I just typed a bunch of absolute nonsense but it should serve its purpose.

[robleyd]

Every paragraph where you have added text starts with two spaces - you can see this if you enable View | Non-printing characters ( or Ctrl + F10). The empty paragraphs have no leading spaces. The width of the spaces varies due to the justification.

[Rayneworks]

So, do you know how I can stop it and make it even on both sides of the page?

[robleyd]

I can't see anything that would add the spaces; if I add new paragraphs they have no leading spaces.

Maybe you have some unexpected setting in AutoCorrect - try turning AutoCorrect off and see if the problem goes away.

[Tutorial] Automatic functions in Writer - enable / disable

Edit: Missed the fact that you said you had added spaces at the beginning of the paragraph - what I have said above is not useful in this case

[RoryOF]

Remove the initial two spaces for each paragraph, (Find and Replace, Find ^<space><space> Replace <nothing>, drop More options and check Regular expressions, Replace all) and set for the styles in use, on the indents and spacing tab, First line to have a spacing such as you desire, perhaps 12 pt.
Have a look at the enclosed file.

Edit: The solution is to learn how to use Styles correctly. Do not use two spaces to start a paragraph. Set the styles in use to have the correct first line indentation. See Writer for students (several languages) for an overview.

[Hagar Delest]

If you really need the spaces, the non-breaking space can do the trick (Ctrl+Shift+Space) but it's a dirty one. As said above, use the indent feature. Very handy if you need to change the spacing for the whole document afterward.

Please add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[Jeff Root]

I'm very new to OpenOffice Writer, but this looks fairly obvious to me.
When you turn on justification, the widths of spaces vary from one line
to the next depending on the length of the line. So if there are spaces
at the start of each line, the position of the first character on a line
will depend on the width of the spaces on that line.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis