Formatting - Copy Paste OR Um, Extract Page?

[lxloco]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

Hello all.

My name is Greg. Although I searched the archive, I could not find exactly what I am looking for. My apologies if I missed a posted solution.

Here is what I have.

I have a document; it has three pages.
Each page has a different formatting -- some pages have tables, some pages have address blocks, some pages have formatting that I don't understand.

Here is what I want to do.

I want to copy page one, paste it into a new blank document, and retain the formatting. Repeat for pages two and three. Thus, I would have three documents, each document retaining the format of its, um, father.

OR

Break off/extract each page (the way Acrobat allows extraction) so that each page retains it's formatting.

Here is the problem

Upon pasting into the new blank document the margins seem out of whack, and, for example, text that was in the middle of the page and centered, now appears centered but at the top of the page.

Here is my workaround

I copy the entire document (all three pages) and then paste it into a new document. The formatting pastes perfectly into the new blank document. From the new document I delete pages two and three, so that I only have page one remaining. I then repeat the process in a new blank document, this time deleting pages one and three, so that only perfect page two remains. Then I do the same for page three. Each page is finally isolated and perfectly formatted.

If I only had ONE three page document I would simply use this workaround and be done with it. Alas, I have approximately thirty such documents.

Surely there is a better way. Sadly, I am uninformed.

Might a kind and smart soul have insights to share?

Yours,
Greg

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Greg,

I do this sort of task frequently. Experience has shown me to distrust all
received formatting because it takes me too long to find out exactly how it
has been done, and my formatting -- with liberal use of styles -- is much
quicker to apply from scratch than other re-formatting. In *most* instances.

Doing that also avoids pagination problems (because Word has no concept of
pages but simply flows text).

Take a look at the article 'Stopping other people¹s styles over-riding yours
when they receive your document' on page 120 (and after that, the preceding
pages) of some notes on the way I use Word for the Mac, titled "Bend Word to
Your Will", which are available as a free download from the Word MVPs'
website (http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the Americas and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
====================================================