Backward Compatability of Wd02 Style Separators

[Jose]

Word 2002 can automatically insert a style separator in a paragraph.
How would a paragraph formatted that way look to a user of Word 97
and Word 2002?

I have Word 2002, and I am drafting some documents for someone with a
prior version but I'm not sure which one. I want the paragraph
headings--which will be followed by the automatically inserted style
separator and then a different paragraph style--to be TOC entries.
In view of the versions likely to be in use by the end users, would
it be better for me to create the TOC automatically or to manually
mark the headings?

TIA

 

[Stefan Blom]

Please see:

http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/RunInSidehead.htm

 

[Jose]

http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/RunInSidehead.htm

Stefan, I understand the procedure, but what I'm wondering is how
that procedure, using the automatic style separator and not
inserting anything, in Word 2002 would appear to someone using a
prior version from Word 97 through Word 2000. Would it look the
way it is intended to look?

The other question is whether, with style separators in use, it is
better to use an automatically generated TOC or to mark the run-in
side heads manually; again, the issue is appearance in Word 97 and
Word 2000.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I haven't experimented with this and don't have any easy way to test it, but
I suspect that Word would treat the style separator as a hidden paragraph
mark. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Jay Freedman]

If no one else has answered this by tonight, I'll check it when I get home.
(The joys of running Virtual PC with four different versions of Word on the
same machine...)

 

[Jay Freedman]

In my (admittedly limited) tests, documents created with style
separators and TOCs in Word 2002 or 2003 looked the same when opened
in 97 or 2000. Updating the TOCs in the earlier versions also appeared
to work correctly.

The only difference I noticed was unrelated to style separators: The
TOCs from the later versions had the Hyperlink character style
(blue+underlined) when opened in 97, and updating in 97 removed the
hyperlinking from the text of the entries and left only the page
numbers linked.

The caveat from http://support.microsoft.com/?id=285059 is correct:

"The style separator is a special form of a hidden paragraph mark, so
documents created in Word 2002 with style separators appear the same
in Word 2000 and Microsoft Word 97 unless you click All under
Formatting Marks. If you click All under Formatting Marks in earlier
versions of Word, the style separator hidden paragraph mark appears as
a normal paragraph mark, and the document will be repaginated.

When you view documents created in Word 2002 with style separators in
earlier versions of Word, do not click All under Formatting Marks."

The reason for the warning is that the repagination will usually
change the page numbers in the TOC to incorrect values.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Confirming my assumption, then. Since I always operate with all NPC
displayed, this would be very obvious.

 

[Jose]

Jay, thanks. Very helpful information. It looks like I can send the
documents to my clients, but only with the caveat that they toggle
*off* the display of all NPC.

Jose

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

They wouldn't have to toggle them all off--just Hidden text. This is what I
have to do when I'm working with indexes. I like to see NPC, so I change the
toggle from All On/All Off to All On/All But Hidden On.

 

[Robert M. Franz]

Hi Jose

Jay, thanks. Very helpful information. It looks like I can send the
documents to my clients, but only with the caveat that they toggle
*off* the display of all NPC.

FWIW, your document may as well paginate differently on another PC no
matter whether you have used the style separator or not – this can
happen between different PCs having the very same version of Word, too ...

2cents
..bob