Spacing between paragraphs?

[MikePost]

Looking at the spacing between the paragraphs below - how can I make them all the same? 

I'm trying to find out how/where any settings or styles are different between them & am getting nowhere.

Help!

[Willi Adelberger]

1. Use in the paragraph styles space before and after and align to naseline grid. Apply these styles.
2. In the object style of the text frame don't use justify.

[Willi Adelberger]

Make the size of the baselijrid the same as the leading of the main text, >>> Preferences

[MikePost]

From what I can tell, there's just a space after in the paragraph spacing & changing that wasn't affecting much, I'm guessing the align to baseline grid overrides other settings? 

My next fear is that is if I make some changes to preferences or baseline grid size, its going to trash the rest of the doc! 

Forgive my lack of knowledge in matters like this, I came into this from a stripping position (no typesetting background), long before desktop publishing became a thing!

[rob day]

Hi @MikePost , Can you show a capture with Hidden Characters turned on? It’s not likely an align to baseline grid setting because I can see in your capture,  your text colunms are not aligned to the same baseline.

Make sure you are not creating space between paragraphs by adding returns—use Space After in your Paragraph or Paragraph Style setting with no extra returns:

[MikePost]

It will probably be an hour or so, as I'm not in the office yet.

[rob day]

Can you share/attach a few pages from the document?

[Peter Spier]

Hi @MikePost , Can you show a capture with Hidden Characters turned on? It’s not likely an align to baseline grid setting because I can see in your capture,  your text colunms are not aligned to the same baseline.

By @rob day

Actually it wouldn't surprise me if it is an align to grid issue, with the following circumstances: Align to grid is set to first line only and the grid does not match the leading in the paragraph.

[Willi Adelberger]

You can also use a baseline grid from the object style for a specific text frame without changing the preferences 

[MikePost]

Thanks for all the advice & help!

Turning off the aligning to baseline grid made a huge difference!

I I had to tweak the leading in a few instances to get it to break roughly the same, as this spanned 4 pages. 

I did have an instance or maybe two where a paragraph started at the top of a page & it looked like the space before was coming into play, but I cheated & moved the text box up & all looked fine in the end, at least to my non-typograher's eye. I'll wait for an ok from the client & report back...

[Peter Spier]

I did have an instance or maybe two where a paragraph started at the top of a page & it looked like the space before was coming into play, but I cheated & moved the text box up & all looked fine in the end, at least to my non-typograher's eye. I'll wait for an ok from the client & report back...

By @MikePost

Space before a paragraph is not implemented when the paragraph starts at the top of the column, so this has to have been something else.

[MikePost]

Closing the box from the top only moved the copy down & I didn't see anything when showing hidden characters, anything else to look for?

[Peter Spier]

Possibly the setting for first line baseline alignment in the Text Frame Options, but for that to show a differnce, the settings would need to be different between frames.

In all honesty, if you want your text to align across columns. the best practice is to assure all frames have the same baseline settings and that you use the baseline grid. As mentioned earlier, it should be set to match the leading of the body text, and the paragraphs should be set to align to grid.

As to exactly waht problem(s) you might have in your document, without seeing it it is impossible to say for sure what is wrong.