WandaCKeesey

More great tips: (refining your templates)
by Wanda C. Keesey

Have you wondered if there isn’t a simpler way to set up your pages when you start a story/novel? In the previous tip, I told you how you can set up a template. That template can contain your margins, font, font size, line spacing, tab set up, and even eliminate orphans/widows spacing.

What, you say, is orphans/widows spacing?

Have you ever wondered why you sometimes have extra space at the bottom of a page? Next time look at the paragraph on the top of the next page. It will be two or three lines long. No, I’m not physic. An orphan/widow space is made when a three line sentence is written with only room for two lines on the current page, instead of allowing one line of the paragraph to sit alone, Word will automatically keep all three lines together. For the same reason, if a paragraph is only two lines long, and the first or current page has only room for one line, both will appear on the next page. To eliminate this waste, and to comply with publishers requirements, you need to “turn off” the line control. Under FORMAT, select PARAGRAPH, and click on the LINE and PAGE BREAKS tab, make sure that ALL items on this page are unselected.

When setting up your template, this can also be set using the FORMAT list. When you do the template, be sure to check everything that is available. You’ll be happy you do when you start that next story, article, or novel. You can set up a separate template for each.

You can change the formatting for a document that has already been written, just highlight the document (CTRL “A”) and select the prepared template.

One more small note on the template, DON’T FORGET TO SELECT--Add to Templates, BEFORE CLOSING. If you don’t do this, you will loss the work you’ve just done.