[Originally appeared 1999.]
This week’s column will be a brief excursion to Laws of Styles #6, originally stated in Word of Law No. 1. The rule was brief enough, “Use no empty paragraphs.”
Please do not read this and the other “laws” as absolute, unbreakable rules. In the real world, a code of law must be interpreted and adapted. The Laws of Styles were intended to be broad, brief and a bit provocative.
The absence of empty paragraphs helps assure consistency of formatting, and allows formatting to be transformed accurately. There are, however, several circumstances where it is neither practical, nor appropriate to avoid them completely. It takes enormous discipline, for instance, to avoid using empty paragraphs to separate the closing line of a letter from the author’s name, or similar spacing in other types of signature blocks.
A “pure” approach would create the space by setting the Space After setting of the Closing Line paragraph style to a large enough number to open up the space. Even so, there may be good reasons to leave an empty paragraph mark. David Kiefer was kind enough to point out that such empty paragraphs may be used by programs such as RightFax for signature codes.
In planning a template for use with macros, empty paragraphs may be necessary or desirable to assure that text gets inserted in the proper place and style. Document assembly tools such as Matthew Bender/Capsoft’s HotDocs use empty paragraphs liberally as part of their template coding pattern. During the macro or assembly process, all or nearly all of the empty paragraphs should disappear or be filled.
So, our amended/corrected/interpreted rule/guide/suggestion could be, “Use very few empty paragraphs in finished documents.” No one would ever remember it. Let’s keep calling these rules “laws,” and keep up the discussion to learn how to use them well.
This 1999 article originally appeared in Office Watch.Subscribe to Office Watch free at http://www.office-watch.com/.