Headers & Footers - Word 2003

[Jackie D]

Can anyone tell me why, when I print a page, my footer is 1 cm bigger than my
header even though the footer is 'based on' the header (achieved in
styles>formatting) AND in page set up the measurements are set the same:

top margin: 2.5 cm
bottom margin: 2.5 cm
Header: 1.25 cm
Footer: 1.25 cm

I'm a bit baffled...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Even though the Footer style may be based on the Header style, that doesn't
guarantee that it's identical. Also, if you pasted text into the footer, you
likely have an extra, empty paragraph. Display nonprinting characters to
help with troubleshooting.

 

[Jackie D]

Thanks Suzanne. That's exactly what I did.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I always work with NPC displayed, which takes some of the mystery out of the
situation, but it is still a puzzle (and annoyance) to me why Word insists
on inserting an extra paragraph even if you very carefully select the text
*without* the paragraph mark in one header/footer and very carefully paste
it *including* the paragraph mark in the other.

 

[Jackie D]

So it's not just me then?

Actually, I'm having a very frustrating day in Word. I wonder if you'd mind
me asking another couple of questions?

I'm still in the same template that I've been talking about except now I
have inserted tables into it. But when I print, the table text ends two
thirds of the way up the page (even though the paragraph continues on to the
next page) and the footer text is half a cm beneath it! I would expect my
footer to stay at the bottom of the page where I put it. Do you know what's
happening?

There's something peculiar going on with my margins as well: my left & right
margins are supposed to be 2.5 cm but they've printed with 2 cm on the left
and 5 cm on the right. Would it have anything to do with the fact that my
comments are being printed down the right-hand margin? Does Word 2003
automatically compensate and push the margins across?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The clue is "comments." When you use Track Changes and/or Comments (markup)
and have "balloons" enabled (Tools | Options | Track Changes), your changes
and comments are printed in the margin, and Word reduces the page size to
accommodate the marginal balloons. If you print directly from the Final
Showing Markup view (which is the default), you will get this automatically.
If you print from Final view, or select "Document" rather than "Document
showing markup" in the Print dialog, you'll get the document without
comments and without the shrinkage. Or you can disable balloons in the
Options dialog.

 

[Jackie D]

Thanks again, Suzanne. That worked perfectly when I selected 'print
document'. I've only just installed Office 2003, so I am only just getting to
grips with the differences beteen it and 2000.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There are definitely a lot of differences between Word 2000 and 2003. From
the standpoint of Track Changes, be glad you skipped Word 2002, which had an
immature version of the new format.