Section breaks and headers/footers

[Guest]

I have a chunk of text within a document that I wish to display in 2 columns.
When I do this, Word adds two continuous section breaks before and after the
columns of text to distinguish it from the text sandwiching it that is not
formatted to columns. However, this plays havoc with my headers and footers,
and I find that the columned text is treated as a whole new section and the
page numbering reverts back to 1. The next section, immediately after the
columned text is also treated seperately and the page number reverts back to
1 also. I need the page numbers to be continuous, is there a way around this
or am I approaching it incorrectly???

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Margaret Aldis]

You can reset the page numbering to "Continue from previous section" in the
"Page Number Format" dialog - directly available from the Header and Footer
toolbar, or you can use the Format ... button from Insert > Page Numbers
(but don't inadvertently add page numbers from here).

The reason it happens is that Word picks up the settings from the previous
section when it makes a new one. If the problem is a constant annoyance then
there are various approaches to avoid having to reset the numbering manually
each time. For instance, you may be able to preset the column format into
your template, or save that section (including it's *concluding* section
break, which stores all the section properties) as AutoText. Or you might
record a macro to reset the page numbering quickly.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Place the insertion point in the first section of the document. On the
Insert menu, click Page Numbers. Click the Format button. Select
"Continue from previous section", and click OK. Click Close to close
the Insert Page Numbers dialog box. Repeat these steps for subsequent
sections.

Note that it is easier to access the Page Number Format dialog box via
the Header/Footer toolbar; then you can use the Show Next and Show
Previous buttons to move between sections. However, this method won't
let you access sections which are "smaller" than a page (and therefore
don't have any visible headers and footers), unless you extend that
section first, for example by inserting a temporary page break.

For more about page numbering, see
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/numbering/PageNumbering.htm

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Guest]

I find it easier to put the text into a table instead. No problem with using
section breaks, headers, footers, etc. Easier to navigate too!

Suzan

 

[Guest]

Thanks Suzan, I had managed to sort it out with Margaret and Stefan's
suggestions, but your idea sounds like a winner! 2 line solutions are always
the way forward for someone of my limited technichal expertise.....

Thanks to all three for your help!

 

[Stefan Blom]

It is certainly possible to make a two-column table look like
newspaper columns, but it requires some manual work. The reason is
of course that text won't flow from one column to the next in a table.
You'd have to take care of that yourself (by using cut and paste). In
other words, if the two-column part of the document could be expected
to grow bigger than the height of a page, I definitely would recommend
using actual newspaper columns, so that Word gets to handle the text
flow.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Guest]

I think it depends on what you are doing, the quantity of text, and how much
editing you might expect to do. I have had problems with columns in the past
and have done much better with tables. Also, when our company moved from
WordPerfect to Word, many documents that contained tables or columns went
goofy on us. We recreated those sections with tables easier than we could
have with columns. Since they did not expect heavy editing, it worked fine.

Suzan

 

[Guest]

I think it depends on what you are doing, the quantity of text, and how much
editing you might expect to do. I have had problems with columns in the past
and have done much better with tables. Also, when our company moved from
WordPerfect to Word, many documents that contained tables or columns went
goofy on us. We recreated those sections with tables easier than we could
have with columns. Since they did not expect heavy editing, it worked fine.

Suzan

 

[Guest]

I found this information to be very helpful, but I would like to continue the
discussion with my "problem". I have a similar situation, however, I am
trying to do a different odd/even footer as well and have the pages on the
outside of my "book". The continuous section breaks are wrecking havoc in my
document: I always end up with odd pages in a new section. I cannot change
the information in the continuous sections to tables because it needs to be
manipulated often and it would take way too much time to move the information
around from top to bottom and side to side. I apologize in advance if I am
not making sense. I tried explaining this to my husband and he looked at me
like I had three heads. I am truly stumped. TIA!!!!

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I would suggest that you start a new thread. I don't even find the
antecedent messages among the 12000+ I have archived on my computer. Try, at
least temporarily, changing your section breaks to "next page" so you can
access the headers/footers.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


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[Guest]

Thanks, I will do that tomorrow morning. I appreciate the suggestion.

 

[Guest]

Hi Everyone,

I have a similar problem with my document. I hope someone can help me out
b/c I have talked to a bunch of people and have no answer.

I have a rather large document that 2-3 people have been working on
together. Some of the pages had 2 columns and other 1 column. I believe
section breaks were created in the making of the document. However, the
sections are funny, they don't follow ... section 1, 2, 3, and so on. It will
go from section1 to 3 to 12? We ulitmately changed the whole document to be 1
column for looks. Now, I am having a BIG problem inserting page numbers with
the footer. The page numbers are repeating themselves every or so 6 pages.

Can I delete the section breaks? Is there something I can do to insert
continuous pages?

I have read the answers to the previous question and nothing is working.
Help please...

Thanks

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can delete all section breaks by searching for ^b and replacing with
nothing. Your page numbering should now be continuous. If section breaks are
needed for some other reason, you can now reinsert them without affecting
the page numbering.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

Thank you so much!!!! You are a lifesaver! I have been struggling with this
for the past 4 days, and I am on deadline with this doc.
Not even the IT specialists where I work could help me.

Have a great week!!!

- Lindsey

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Glad that worked for you.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.