Footnotes Bump Sections to Next Page

[SCSC]

I have a strange formatting issue. Inserting a footnote
into a section seems to bump the next section down to the
next page, even if it's preceeded by a continuous section
break.

Here's how you can quickly reproducte the problem:

1. In a new document, type =rand(3,5) (this quickly
enters some test text)
2. Select the second paragraph and make it into two
columns. (You should now have, on the same page, a one-
column section, followed by a two-column section, followed
by another one-column section.)
3. Anywhere in the first paragraph (the one-column
section), instert a footnote.

After insterting the footnote, you will see that the
second and third sections have been bumped to the next
page. If you were to undo that and put a footnote in the
second section, then only the third would be bumped to the
next page.

Any ideas on what's going on? Is this one of those
strange "by design" things, or is it a real bug?

Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This is a known issue; I hesitate to say that it is "by design," but it
evidently isn't viewed as a bug since it hasn't been fixed. <sigh> For a
workaround, see
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/FtnoteSpanColumns.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Bob S]

I have a strange formatting issue. Inserting a footnote
into a section seems to bump the next section down to the
next page, even if it's preceeded by a continuous section
break.

The reason for this behavior is probably that solving it would be
excessively difficult for the page layout subsystem. It wouldn't know
how many columns the footnote should use until it found out what was
the last section on the page, but which section was last on the page
might be changed by how much space the footnotes took up, which might
be changed depending on how many columns they were in…

One workaround is to set the footnotes for "below text" instead of
"bottom of page". You might not like that solution any better
though...

Bob S

 

[SCSC]

Thank you both for your replies to my problem.

It seems that if I go to Options, Compatibility, and I
choose "Layout footnotes like Word 6.x/95/97" then
everything works fine, so it seems to be a 2000 (maybe
also XP issue).

Thanks again.