You were right craig.
i went to document in word and the option to 'remove space after each paragraph' does solve the issue of the extra lines
- question now is how would i do that in the automation coding
i have added the following if that's any help. can't seem to find anything obvious in the literature.

loSelection.Start=1
loSelection.End=len(filetostr(mytext.txt))

>Word may be adding spacing between paragraphs. If each line ends with a CR/LF, Word will see it as a new paragraph. You'll have to change it in paragraph settings. Or, remove the CR/LF from the text file.
>
>>I am trying to create a .doc from plain text and format font and line spacing. the font works i can't find anything about removing line spacing in the document. the text itself does not appear to have any added lines between so it appears to word that is adding it.
>>i would like to add a loselection for line spacing of 0
>>does anyone know how to do that.
>>
>>thanks
>>k
>>

>>LOCAL loWord, loSelection, loDocument
>>loWord = CREATEOBJECT("Word.Application")
>>loWord.Visible = .T.
>>loDocument = loWord.Documents.Add()
>>loSelection = loWord.Selection
>>
>>loSelection.Font.Name= "lucida console"
>>loSelection.Font.Size= "7"
>>loSelection.TypeText(filetostr(mytext.txt))
>>