Hi J. Tanner - I thought I removed all of the multiple space characters (I did have some). Is there an easy fix that even a person that has a tough time digesting these things can understand?
Hm. I found DOC format to be something of a black box. You just never know what's in there, and all sorts of stuff can mess up your formatting. If you've read the Smashwords guide, this is the whole reason behind what they call the "Nuclear Option". For BN and Amazon I avoided DOC and made my own HTML. While it's a bit nerdy to learn, it's at least transparent. For Smashwords I was forced to use DOC, and I started with the Nuclear option and had no problems. In short, I've got no firsthand experience.
If I were in that position, first I'd make sure I have Word in edit mode. There's a toolbar button that looks like a reverse PP and when it's enabled, you'll see the same symbol at the end of every paragraph, dots for spaces, etc. This will visually show you if you have tabs or spaces at the beginning of paragraphs.
If that didn't help, I'd break a longer book down into smaller chunks to troubleshoot. if you know the 3rd chapter has some format issues, copy it into a seperate DOC from the rest of the book and experiment on that using whatever formatting tool you're using and the appropriate previewer. If you can't figure it out, try the Nuclear Option on this small chunk to see if that's a last resort solution. You'll get an idea of how long it might take to do that for the whole book if it becomes necessary. (Ultimately, to me, it's always worth it to not cave and let formatting errors slide even if they're minor, and even if they take a long time to resolve.)
