Header being altered by body text

[AmeliaT]

Hi all

Hope someone can shed some light on this for me. I am editing a previously
written document. When I delete some of the body text, this alters the header
to contain text I have not specified at any point, and erases what I have
typed in there myself. It's really frustrating! Can anyone tell me why this
might be happening and ideally how to rectify it?

Thanks,

Amelia

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Unless the header contains a StyleRef field, the likelihood is that in
deleting some of the text you've deleted a page or section break. Note that
if "Different first page" or "Different odd and even" is enabled in a
document/section, Word will remember the content of headers that are not
present in a given section. If a section becomes long enough to include
those extra headers, they will show up.

 

[AmeliaT]

Thanks Suzanne. What is confusing me is firstly that when I delete text, the
header on the page I'm looking at does not change to the "First Page Header"
text, but to something completely different, which looks like what the header
might have been many saves ago, which I have not entered myself at any point.

Also, this is on the second page of the document, so it should not be
affected by the first page header, should it? Could the first page "section"
be spread across two pages, and if so do you know how to undo this?

Thank you for your help!

Amelia

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In the Header pane, how are the headers labeled? I'm guessing that the First
Page Header is correct, and the Header (or Even Page Header) is one you
hadn't seen before. If the document contains more than one section, note
which section and header you're in as you skip through the document using
the Show Next button on the Header and Footer toolbar. Keep in mind, too,
that any one of those headers can be linked (Link to Previous) to a header
that exists but is not currently displayed in a previous section. For more,
see http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/HeaderFooter.htm

 

[AmeliaT]

The header in question is labelled "First Page Header - Section 2". So it
looks as though this one is being carried over from the first page, but it
shouldn't be. "Link to Previous" is not turned on. How do I make it see that
this is now the rest of the document, not a continuation of the front page?

Thanks

Amelia

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can disable "Different first page" in Section 2, or you can delete the
content of the Section 2 First Page Header and replace it with the Header
content. I'd advise that you actually do both. First substitute the Header
content in the First Page Header (so that if it ever shows up in a
subsequent section, it will be taken care of), then disable "Different first
page" for all but the first section.