Document Map not displayed with page-break-before heading in Word

[rkwest]

Since upgrading to Word 2007 from Word 2003, it seems that the Document Map
does not display the document outline if the Heading 1 style has the
Paragraph setting 'Page break before' checked. Instead, the pane just has
whatever garbage was in that part of the display prior to attempting to bring
it up. If I turn off the 'Page break before' setting for the Heading 1 style,
the Document Map correctly renders the document outline.

The only workaround I've found is to temporarily disable the Page break
before setting for that style, and then restore it when I'm done editing, but
this is a major nuisance as this setting is in our standard document
template, and I use the Document Map frequently to both ensure the logical
structure of my documents as well as to quickly navigate between sections.

Has anyone else seen this, and is there a way to report this issue to
Microsoft aside from this forum?

 

[rkwest]

Thanks for your helpful response. Indeed, if I start a new document from the
Normal.dotm template and apply that same feature ('Page break before' on
Heading 1), the Document Map works fine.

So, do I need to re-create my template? But what do I do with all my
existing documents? They've all been created with that same template, and are
all corrupted in the same manner. I've been saving them in compatibility mode
as .doc files rather than .docx files, as not everyone in our company is
upgraded. If I create a new working template, but then copy/paste the
contents of an existing document starting from the first Heading into a new
document based on the new template, will it corrupt the new file?

I'll play around a bit and see what happens, but if you have any other
suggestions, I'd appreciate it. I've got a good dozen documents, some of
considerable size, that would need to be fixed.

Thanks.

 

[Terry Farrell]

You should be able to use the Templates and Add-in button (on the Developer
ribbon) to select the new template, check the Update Styles and then attach
it to an old document. That should resolve the problem, but I would test it
first though as some corruptions are deeper than at first may seem.

Note that you can download the Office 2007 compatibility pack for Office
version 2000 - 2003 which will enable all users to read Office 2007 files as
well as provide them with all the new fonts.

 

[rkwest]

I've found the problem. It seems to be caused by my 'odd page' section break
right after the TOC and preceding the first 'Heading 1' heading. It appears
that I had a paragraph marker preceding the section break, and as soon as I
removed that paragraph marker so that the line contained only the 'odd page'
section break, the Document Map immediately displayed correctly. Go figure.

For anyone else who has also torn their hair out while trying to use the
section breaks, which, in my opinion, have one of the worst interfaces ever,
there is some helpful information here:
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/BlankPage.htm#True_blank_pages

Thanks, Terry, for your tips. I wasn't familiar with the compatibility pack
and will check into it if we need it for our group.

As for applying a template to a document after the fact, that works for me
when I want to just incorporate the styles defined in the template, but I
don't know of a way to "apply" the cover page, section breaks and other
boilerplate from the template to an existing document without simply
copy/pasting them.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "Developer" ribbon; there is no
"Developer" tab on my ribbon. Oh, I just found it! Thanks! That's very
useful, and much easier to get to the Templates (2 clicks) than going through
the Word Options dialog (6 clicks). For anyone interested, select the
"Office" menu button in the top left corner of Word, select the Word Options
button on the bottom bar of the menu, select the Popular entry in the left
pane of the Word Options dialog, check the "Show Developer tab in the Ribbon"
checkbox in the right pane, and click OK. This will add the Developer tab to
your Ribbon, which contains Templates controls among other things.

Thanks all for your help!