How to set page color evenly for different page?

[Richard Lewis Haggard]

I'm trying to layout a magazine for a college journal and am having trouble
with setting page backgrounds.

Here's what the editor wants to do: The first page, the cover page, is going
to have a black background. All succeeding pages have the normal background
color. I got the first page all black but things fall apart when I get to
the second page. I tried Insert->Break->Section Break/Next Page and then, on
the second page, did Format->Background->No Fill. That results in the bottom
of the first page turning white which, of course, is not quite the desired
effect.

How can I make the first page be completely black and all succeeding pages'
background the normal no fill background color? Please keep in mind that I'm
a programmer, not a person who has the slightest clue as to how to work with
Word so it would be greatly appreciated if you could couch your answers in a
fashion that a rather dim 3 year old will understand. Thanks!

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello Richard

I'm trying to layout a magazine for a college journal and am having trouble
with setting page backgrounds.

just curious here: the journal is printed from the Word file, or from a
PDF created from Word, or is it distributed in electronic form? Frankly,
if you go to print with colors from Word, you might run into a couple of
problems apart from coloring pages individually ...

Here's what the editor wants to do: The first page, the cover page, is going
to have a black background. All succeeding pages have the normal background
color. I got the first page all black but things fall apart when I get to
the second page. I tried Insert->Break->Section Break/Next Page and then, on
the second page, did Format->Background->No Fill. That results in the bottom
of the first page turning white which, of course, is not quite the desired
effect.

How can I make the first page be completely black and all succeeding pages'
background the normal no fill background color? Please keep in mind that I'm
a programmer, not a person who has the slightest clue as to how to work with
Word so it would be greatly appreciated if you could couch your answers in a
fashion that a rather dim 3 year old will understand. Thanks!

It's debatable whether a programmer is better or worse equipped to work
with Word compared to the average user.

Anyway, the background feature you're using has probably been created
with HTML export in mind. That means there is only one color per file
(an HTML page has -- at most -- one background color as well). [IIRC and
maybe depending on versions of Word, it wouldn't even print ...]

That means what you want to do is separate the file with in sections
(you have that already), and then insert, say, a page-filling borderless
rectangular Autoform, anchored to each individual header or footer of
your sections. And color it as you like it.

Once you start working with sections, the following article might shed
some light:

Working with Sections (by Dave Rado)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WorkWithSections.htm

And there is a great deal more useful articles where this one comes
from. You should be used to reading documentation, so there you go ... ;-)

HTH
Robert