Strip Blank Paragraphs from a Document
The Problem:
Two hard returns after each paragraph, three hard returns after each heading, and four hard returns before a heading...will someone please tell my colleagues, many happy returns, but the typewriter is dead? I know I'm wasting time by telling them about styles, but if only they'd cut down on thumping the Enter key so many times, I'd be a far happier camper.
The Solution:
Relax, you can fix this easily enough. Choose Edit 
Replace, type ^p^p in the "Find what" box and ^p in the "Replace with" box, and click the Replace All button. When Word tells you how many replacements it has made, click the OK button, and then click the Replace All button again. That should take care of the problem: the first pass reduces each set of four hard returns to two, each set of three hard returns to two, and each set of two hard returns to one. The second reduces each remaining set of two hard returns to one.