Bug in Microsoft Word 2019 Affecting the Spacing Before a Heading 1 Style at the top of a page

Question

I'm working in MS Word 2019 with Styles. When I modify the Heading 1 style, I set the spacing before at 18 pt. and I also select a page break before. This results in a Heading 1 always being at the top of a new page which I want. However, the 18 pt. before is only applied on the first page. On all subsequent pages it is less than 18 pt. I was told that this is a bug and to delete the Normal template and try again, which I did but the problem is still occurring. This also occurs when I work in a template that I've created myself. Any ideas how to fix this?

All I can think to do is to set the spacing before higher such as 22 pt. and then all of the pages will look as I want them to except for the first page, which is really not ideal and is not the technical solution.

Thanks for any help on this!

Answer 1

This isn't a bug, it is a feature! Just ask Microsoft if you don't believe me. In any case, it is by design, intentional, not a bug. That does not make it less annoying, though.

Whoever told you to delete the Normal template did not know what they were talking about!

This is a change, made with Word 2013, in how Word puts documents together. In earlier versions, the space-before formatting would work.

Beginning with Word 2013, space-before paragraph formatting is effective at the top of a page only on the first page of a section, unless the paragraph is in a Frame. (Every Word document has at least one section.)

You can work around it in one of three ways that I know about.

1. You can put a section break before (next page or odd/even page). This cannot be part of a style definition.
2. You can include a Frame as part of your Heading 1 definition.
3. You can get your document into compatibility mode for Word 2010 and check the option to allow space before. See Word MVP Suzanne Barnhill's response in this thread. You can move it to compatibility mode for Word 2010 with a macro.

I prefer the second method as it does not give you more sections than you need. Sections complicate documents. Putting the document into Compatibility mode will disable some features, including collapsible headings. In addition, if some well-meaning person converts your document to the latest settings, your formatting goes kaflooey.

Frames have been a part of Word since at least Word 95 but the controls for inserting one have been hidden in Ribbon versions. Essentially, you can find the control for inserting a Frame under the legacy form controls on the Developer Tab or under the Format button/menu on the Style definition dialog.

Here is my writing on how to include a Frame as part of the heading style's definition. The screenshot above is from that page. My own Normal template includes several custom paragraph styles that include Frames.

On deleting the Normal template:

The Normal template often holds a number of user customizations. There can be problems with the template. In those instances, though, you do not delete it, you rename it, with Word closed. This gives all the benefits you could get from deleting it while potentially retaining any useful modifications.