w:contextualSpacing (Contextual Spacing)

Suppresses the space before or after a paragraph when the adjacent paragraph uses the same style.

Parent elements

w:pPr

Description

w:contextualSpacing suppresses the w:spacing before or after value on a paragraph when the adjacent paragraph uses the same paragraph style. It is an on/off toggle property defined in ECMA-376 Part 1 §17.3.1.9.

This prevents double-spacing between consecutive list items or body-text paragraphs that share the same style, while preserving visual separation when the style changes. The spacing suppression applies to the smaller of the two adjacent spacing values.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Possible Values	Description
`w:val`	`ST_OnOff`	`true`, `1`, `on` (enabled) / `false`, `0`, `off` (disabled). Omitting the attribute is equivalent to `true`.	Toggles contextual spacing on or off.

Examples

<w:pPr>
  <w:contextualSpacing/>
</w:pPr>

new ParagraphProperties(
  new ContextualSpacing());

Notes

The “Normal” body-text style in Word has w:contextualSpacing enabled by default.
Contextual spacing is applied per-paragraph; both adjacent paragraphs need not have the property set — only the one whose spacing is being suppressed.