Keep with Next not working

[Nevets]

I have a heading style I'm using, and have modified the style's paragraph
settings with the "Keep with Next" box checked. However, I still get
instances where the heading will be the last line at the bottom of a page.
What am I doing wrong?

 

[Jay Freedman]

I have a heading style I'm using, and have modified the style's paragraph
settings with the "Keep with Next" box checked. However, I still get
instances where the heading will be the last line at the bottom of a page.
What am I doing wrong?

That usually indicates that you have an "empty paragraph" of some other style,
such as Normal, following the heading. Since that paragraph doesn't have "Keep
with next", it gets separated from the paragraph of visible text after that.

Remove the empty paragraph mark. If you want extra space between the heading and
the following text, increase the Space After paragraph formatting in the heading
style.

 

[Nevets]

That's not the problem. The next line is the start of a bulleted list
(actually an outline numbered list I've customized the way I want multi-level
bullets in the whole document to appear). There is no empty paragraph. I
tried to experiment by adding some text with a Normal style in the next line,
but the same thing is happening...my heading is alone at the bottom of the
previous page.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Is it possible that the paragraphs after the heading also have "Keep with next"
turned on, and the whole group is longer than a page? Word has to put a page
break somewhere, so it will sometimes ignore a "Keep with next" instruction for
that reason.

 

[Nevets]

Nope, that isn't it either...as I mentioned, the next paragraph is the start
of a bulleted list, and the paragraph formatting of the list doesn't have
"keep with next" checked. It's actually quite puzzling if you ask me...I
thought I would try to cut and paste the offending segment into another word
file and suggest sending it to you so you could look at the formatting
yourself. However, when I tried, the "keep with next" in the new document
works as expected. As I add lines above, as soon as the "keep with next"
line is on it's own at the bottom of the page, it moves itself to the next
page. When I try the same manipulation within the original document, it
doesn't work.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Although I've never seen it myself, I've read that it's possible for a Word
document to become "slightly corrupted" -- not badly enough to prevent opening
it or working in it, but enough to create some odd and otherwise unexplainable
behavior (http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm). The cure for this
is to copy everything from the document _except_ the final paragraph mark (or
everything in a section except the trailing section break) and paste it into a
new document. It seems you've stumbled on this technique yourself.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

 

[Shyb]

I have noticed that if the paragraph following the heading that you want to attach to it has the widow/orphan checked, the keep with next does not work.