Deleting blank page with paragraph mark

[Stan The Man]

That says it really. Office 2001 and plenty of documents with full-page
tables and nothing on the final page except a paragraph mark which
won't fit on the previous page under the table and won't delete. How do
I get rid of this blank page? TIA.

Stan

 

[Elliott Roper]

That says it really. Office 2001 and plenty of documents with full-page
tables and nothing on the final page except a paragraph mark which
won't fit on the previous page under the table and won't delete. How do
I get rid of this blank page? TIA.

Heh! Make the table one line shorter. The last para mark in a document
is the outward and visible sign of all the metadata that knows about
the structure of your document. It simply can't live without it.

The only way that I can think of is to print with a page range from 1
to n-1 when you have to create output.

 

[Stan The Man]

Heh! Make the table one line shorter. The last para mark in a document
is the outward and visible sign of all the metadata that knows about
the structure of your document. It simply can't live without it.

The only way that I can think of is to print with a page range from 1
to n-1 when you have to create output.

I can't mess with the tables because they are all exact size for
printing onto sheets of labels. I've often wished that Word could have
a final para mark on the same line as the last of the data. How much
paper has been inadvertently wasted?

Stan

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I can't mess with the tables because they are all exact size for
printing onto sheets of labels. I've often wished that Word could have
a final para mark on the same line as the last of the data. How much
paper has been inadvertently wasted?

How about reducing the bottom margin? (Just drag it down until you don't get
a second page.) Just ignore the alert you might get about being outside the
printer's margins since you don't care if the final blank line prints
anyway.

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[Elliott Roper]

I can't mess with the tables because they are all exact size for
printing onto sheets of labels. I've often wished that Word could have
a final para mark on the same line as the last of the data. How much
paper has been inadvertently wasted?

Not a lot. I would think that only a few of us have ever produced a
table that completely fills the last page of a document.[1]

If you have a couple of hours, I'll give you a list of far more
annoying "undocumented features".

Today's delight is styles with ordinary (not outline) numbering getting
corrupted across a whole document after an attempt to indent a set of
paragraphs in that style.

1. PS It was a joke for chrissakes. Just don't print the last page. How
difficult is that?

 

[Stan The Man]

Just don't print the last page. How
difficult is that?

Not difficult - if you remember to do it. But annoying to have to do it
at all if many documents are afflicted. I deal with a lot of labels so
I get plenty of annoyance. Sometimes I can squeeze the final para mark
onto the preceding page by reducing the font size at that point to 1 -
but often this isn't enough to do it.

Stan

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Stan,

How about formatting the last paragraph mark as "hidden" (Format > Font)?
(Uncheck "Tools > Options > Print > Hidden text" if necessary)

Regards,
Klaus

 

[John McGhie]

Oooh, you be careful, you two!!

The last paragraph mark in a document is very sacred to Word, and the
paragraph immediately following a table is nearly as important.

In the binary structure of a Word document, all of the important information
other than the text is in that last paragraph mark. The very glue that
holds the document together. If you damage that last paragraph mark, the
document cannot be opened at all.

The paragraph immediately following a table has a similarly strategic
importance to Word.

"Hiding" paragraph marks is a dangerous practice at the best of times. If
you hit the wrong paragraph mark at the wrong time, Word can lose the plot
and corrupt the document. Doing it to the paragraph immediately following a
table is very dangerous. Doing it to the last paragraph mark in the
document is thrill-seeking. Doing this to the last paragraph mark in the
document that is also the paragraph immediately following a table is simply
suicidal. You have a death-wish for that document??

Set its line height to one point high, if you must. Colour it white if you
must. But for pity's sake, don't hide it, unless you really can afford to
lose all of the content of that document forever.

Hope this helps!

Hi Stan,

How about formatting the last paragraph mark as "hidden" (Format > Font)?
(Uncheck "Tools > Options > Print > Hidden text" if necessary)

Regards,
Klaus

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[Klaus Linke]

Oooh, you be careful, you two!!

I'm the one to blame if you want to ;-)

The last paragraph mark in a document is very sacred to Word, and
the paragraph immediately following a table is nearly as important.

I don't know why you regard the paragraph mark following a table (which
isn't necessarily there anyway) as important (or sacred).

The importance of the final paragraph mark is more of a metaphor in my
book.
If you copy text without the final para mark, the document-level stuff is
left behind (and that is where the real corruption might live).
Same for section breaks and section level formatting.

As far as I have seen, applying "hidden" to the final para mark isn't much
different from any other formatting that you might apply.

I have used hidden text very, very much over many years and have never once
run into a corrupted document.
Word has lots of bugs and maybe I'll have to eat crow if there is one here.
But it's one I've never seen myself, or mentioned in a newsgroup.

I rarely use Word on a Mac, though.
So YMMV...

Klaus

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Klaus:

I don't know why you regard the paragraph mark following a table (which
isn't necessarily there anyway) as important (or sacred).

I don't, Word does

The importance of the final paragraph mark is more of a metaphor in my
book.
If you copy text without the final para mark, the document-level stuff is
left behind (and that is where the real corruption might live).
Same for section breaks and section level formatting.

Well, that's a very technical point, but it's quite correct. What we're
really talking about is the document's OLE Storage Container, which does not
appear on-screen or print. But as you say, contains all of the
document-level properties. However, it also contains all of the styles and
formatting and whatever.

However, a "Table" in Word is a special case of "Paragraph" (it's a nested
set. For reasons that probably have something to do with Word's habit of
using the property container as the object terminator, the paragraph after a
table appears to have some special significance. There was a bug in Word
that would instantly corrupt the document if you deleted it. So they put in
a nasty kludge that declared that paragraph to be "protected", which is why
the user can't usually delete it.

I agree that "hidden" property does not normally cause problems. But object
terminators that may or may not be significant in the current context are
stretching the friendship a bit. As we both know, Word is not "perfect",
and I regard the hiding of object terminators as risky.

Then again, I spent three hours last night disembowelling a 2,000 page
document to find out "what" was preventing it from saving. A corrupt OLE
field, of course. In section 3.7.1.3...

I rarely use Word on a Mac, though.

Word X was not a good year. Word 2004 seems so far to be rather more robust
and rugged than Word 2003.

So YMMV...

It does...

Nice to see you here again!

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[Klaus Linke]

Hi John,

Thank you for the detailed explanation!

As we both know, Word is not "perfect"

100% agreement :-/

and I regard the hiding of object terminators as risky.

Perhaps better safe than sorry...

Then again, I spent three hours last night disembowelling
a 2,000 page document to find out "what" was preventing
it from saving. A corrupt OLE field, of course. In section
3.7.1.3...

And I spent all day trying (unsuccessfully so far) to fix the second of
four books in which I had used table styles for the first time.
Corrupted tables, tables that you can't edit, or that change formatting if
you aren't looking, corrupting paragraph and character styles, new
(built-in) styles appearing out of thin air...
It's a dog's breakfast.

Word 2004 seems so far to be rather more robust and rugged
than Word 2003.

Great!! I got it yesterday, and haven't installed yet.

Regards,
Klaus

 

[Stan The Man]

Hi Stan,

How about formatting the last paragraph mark as "hidden" (Format > Font)?
(Uncheck "Tools > Options > Print > Hidden text" if necessary)

Regards,
Klaus

Thanks for the thought, Klaus. But it didn't work. The blank page still
prints.

I would have just liked Word to not print a page unless it has at least
one character on it. I would have thought this would have been pretty
easy to implement....

Stan

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Stan:

It *is* easy to implement. There's something in your document following
that table that is forcing a new page.

Turn on your Show/Hide in Normal View and take a careful look. You may have
a section break hiding there that is forcing a new page.

Cheers

Thanks for the thought, Klaus. But it didn't work. The blank page still
prints.

I would have just liked Word to not print a page unless it has at least
one character on it. I would have thought this would have been pretty
easy to implement....

Stan

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[Beth Rosengard]

Hi John,

I have to disagree. A single paragraph mark on the last page of a document
*will* cause a blank page to print. The usual way to prevent this is by
getting rid of a line on the previous page so the last paragraph mark moves
up. Stan says he is unable to do this because of a table.

I just created a "two-page" document with text only on page 1, ending with a
table that forces the last paragraph mark to the second page. Even with
prefs set to not include hidden text when printing, I get a blank second
page because of that dangling last paragraph mark. As for Klaus's
suggestion to format "the last paragraph mark as 'hidden' (Format > Font)",
I can't find that option in Format> Font (or Format> Paragraph).

Stan, did you try Paul Berkowitz's suggestion ("How about reducing the
bottom margin? Just drag it down until you don't get a second page. Just
ignore the alert you might get about being outside the printer's margins
since you don't care if the final blank line prints anyway.")? It just
worked for me.

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[Stan The Man]

(snip)

Stan, did you try Paul Berkowitz's suggestion ("How about reducing the
bottom margin? Just drag it down until you don't get a second page. Just
ignore the alert you might get about being outside the printer's margins
since you don't care if the final blank line prints anyway.")? It just
worked for me.

I did try it Beth but it didn't work for me. The bottom margin is
anyway set to zero so as to accommodate the final row of cells in the
table and it isn't possible to drag it any further south.

Stan

 

[Stan The Man]

There's nothing there except the paragraph mark, John. I tried two
different pairs of spectacles.

Stan

 

[Clive Huggan]

(snip)


I did try it Beth but it didn't work for me. The bottom margin is
anyway set to zero so as to accommodate the final row of cells in the
table and it isn't possible to drag it any further south.

Stan

Stan,

How are the paragraphs in your tables formatted? In particular, do you have
"zero space before" (zero leading) as your paragraph formatting and do you
hit the Return key twice between paragraphs? I use a style that includes
leading, so I only hit the Return key once and the formatting therefore
looks totally consistent. As a bonus, if I want to reduce the top-to-bottom
distance of a table (e.g. to make enough space for a final paragraph mark as
in your case), I simply select a few of those paragraph and specify a
smaller number of points for the leading. The distance between paragraphs
reduces slightly, the table goes up the page, and the element I want on that
page jumps back on to the page!

If this is relevant to your circumstances and you'd like a simple macro that
does this nudging, post back.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 5 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

 

[Stan The Man]

How are the paragraphs in your tables formatted? In particular, do you have
"zero space before" (zero leading) as your paragraph formatting and do you
hit the Return key twice between paragraphs? I use a style that includes
leading, so I only hit the Return key once and the formatting therefore
looks totally consistent. As a bonus, if I want to reduce the top-to-bottom
distance of a table (e.g. to make enough space for a final paragraph mark as
in your case), I simply select a few of those paragraph and specify a
smaller number of points for the leading. The distance between paragraphs
reduces slightly, the table goes up the page, and the element I want on that
page jumps back on to the page!

If this is relevant to your circumstances and you'd like a simple macro that
does this nudging, post back.

Thanks for the offer, Clive but it isn't going to fix it for me. I
can't change any of the spacing because the text is laid out to print
precisely on a sheet of labels. If I change anything - top/bottom
margin, cell size, leading, paragraph spacing - then the labels don't
print within the sticky label panels.

And no, I never hit Return more than once to break paragraphs.

Stan

 

[John McGhie]

Stan:

Send me a copy of that document, I want to take a look.

I think all you have to do is make the last paragraph mark one point high.

You will need a password to get through my firewall: yours is
"stan(&_AR&Dfp8"

Cheers

Thanks for the offer, Clive but it isn't going to fix it for me. I
can't change any of the spacing because the text is laid out to print
precisely on a sheet of labels. If I change anything - top/bottom
margin, cell size, leading, paragraph spacing - then the labels don't
print within the sticky label panels.

And no, I never hit Return more than once to break paragraphs.

Stan

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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
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[Stan The Man]

Thank you, John, and I will - but I can't see a valid email address for
you.

Stan
(e-mail address removed)