Are sections safe to use?

[Jeff]

Are sections safe to use in word 2002?

I know that some things like Master documents, Manual page breaks, fast
saves, document map, etc. cause document corruption. Are sections one of
the things that can cause document corruption?

Thanks.

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Jeff McPherson
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[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I have never heard of a Section causing corruption. They definitely have a
purpose. Neither have I heard of a hard (manual) page break causing
corruption - maybe an unwanted page break as a result of later editing, but
not corruption.

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Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It is "common knowledge" that section breaks cause corruption. While it is
true that corruption can be stored in a section break (as it can in the last
paragraph mark of a single-section doc), this doesn't mean that documents
with sections are particularly prone to corruption.

It is much more likely that the type of document that requires more than one
section also contains the kind of complexities that can tax Word and perhaps
cause it ultimately to lose track of what it's doing. Such complexities
would include graphics, tables, columns, and other sophisticated formatting.

But you can make Word's job much easier by intelligent use of styles. I can
demonstrate that even a simple document formatted with appropriate styles
will be smaller (in file size) than one using only Normal style and direct
formatting. As documents grow more complex, the use of styles is even more
vital.

 

[Jeff]

Dear Suzanne

Thank you for replying.

It is much more likely that the type of document that requires more than one
section also contains the kind of complexities that can tax Word and perhaps
cause it ultimately to lose track of what it's doing. Such complexities
would include graphics, tables, columns, and other sophisticated

formatting.

Does this mean that to minimize too many graphics, tables, etc. being within
one document, it would be safer, in the case of book length documents, to
divide it into multiple separate chapter documents (instead of using section
breaks for individualized chapter footers and the like)? This would result
in a lesser number of graphics, tables, etc. within each separate chapter
document. Or has it rather to do with the specific complexity of a
particular graphic formatting, rather than the number of them. Probably a
bit of both.

But you can make Word's job much easier by intelligent use of styles. I can
demonstrate that even a simple document formatted with appropriate styles
will be smaller (in file size) than one using only Normal style and direct
formatting. As documents grow more complex, the use of styles is even more
vital.

I do use styles such as headings, etc. instead of text formatting. The only
text formatting I use extensively other than the customized styles that I
set up is italics which I need to use quite a bit in references that include
book texts and the like. I suppose I could create a separate style called
"book title" but that might mess things up since most of these italicized
book titles are in the footnotes which are already written in the style
"footnote text". Any suggestions?

will be smaller (in file size) than one using only Normal style and direct
formatting. As documents grow more complex, the use of styles is even more
vital.

What I have done is modified some of the styles (mostly headings, body text,
and bibliography style) in the normal.dot. Are you suggesting it would be
better to create a new version of Normal.dot within which I delete the
myriad of styles I never use? If so, how do I do that?

The reason I may seem paranoid about document corruption is because these
are very long manuscript documents and although I do save frequently, and
have enabled the ".bak" option (as well as backing up), I would hate to lose
a huge manuscript in one fell swoop. That is why I divide them in chapter
length documents. On the other hand this division into separate chapter
documents and avoiding the use of master documents (which I was accustomed
to use in my ancient WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS) creates a lot of problems with
page numbers when it comes time to print the entire manuscript!

(I am still rather new to Word).

--

Jeff McPherson
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG

It is "common knowledge" that section breaks cause corruption. While it is
true that corruption can be stored in a section break (as it can in the last
paragraph mark of a single-section doc), this doesn't mean that documents
with sections are particularly prone to corruption.

It is much more likely that the type of document that requires more than one
section also contains the kind of complexities that can tax Word and

perhaps

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Word can handle very long documents quite satisfactorily provided you use
common sense (it also helps to have a lot of RAM and an adequate HD;
processor speed is less crucial). I have created documents of many hundreds
of pages with many graphics and tables and a huge index. It is *far* simpler
to keep the document in a single file (and you should not run any particular
risk provided you back it up regularly).

Although you *can* customize your Normal.dot (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CustomizeNormalTemplate.htm), this
is not recommended. Much better to create a specific document template with
the styles for your structured document (or just create the
styles/customizations in your document, without saving them to Normal.dot,
if you'll never use the same formatting again). There is no way to delete
the built-in styles, even in a copy of Normal.dot, so that is not the issue
(and this is another good reason for modifying the built-in ones as much as
possible instead of creating new ones).

As for character styles, the only reason for using them instead of direct
formatting is when there is a chance that you will want to modify the
formatting of all the text to which the style has been applied. For example,
suppose you have decided that all cross-references will be bold. You apply a
Cross-reference style that is just the Default Paragraph Font + Bold. Later,
you decide you want cross-references to be in small caps instead. You can
modify the Cross-reference style and thus update all the cross-references at
one stroke, without affecting any other boldface text. You could use this
approach for titles in footnotes, but since it's highly unlikely you'll want
to make them anything other than italic, there's probably little point.

If you haven't already looked at them, you might want to see these articles:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NumberingFrontMatter.htm

 

[Jeff]

Thank you. I'll check the website links. Appreciate it.

--

Jeff McPherson
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I generally use the character styles of Emphasis (Italicize) and Strong
(bold) that are built into Word. These can be used within paragraph styles.
--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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