Disappearing headers/footers in Word '03 custom template

[jenmusca]

I'm working in a template I have created in Word 2003 and something new is
happening. Normally, in a custom template, I can delete the text in the body
of the new document (after choosing the custom template from File-New), and
the custom headers and footers stay in place. However, today, in my new
template, when I delete the body text, it deletes all of my headers and
footers also. I've never had this happen before. When I do a Select-All it
does not highlight the header and footer text (as if they've been included in
the Select-All) but it's deleting them anyway.

I need my users to be able to delete text but keep the headers and footers!
Any suggestions?

 

[Bear]

Jenmusca:

I can think of two ways in which the body of the document might impact the
headers and footers.

First, if the headers and footers contain fields that depend on values in
the body. For example, using a StyleRef field to put the chapter title into a
header requires that you have a paragraph with the referenced style in the
body.

Second, if the headers and footers you created are defined in a given
section, and the section mark gets deleted, then the headers and footers
defined in the last section (the default section) will be used. So if the
headers and footers defined in the last section are empty, deleting all
section breaks will effectively delete the header and footer content.

There may be other ways of deleting the h&f content, but those two are where
I'd check first.

Bear