Master Document - Header and Footer

[Derek Hart]

I am building a Master Document in code. I know all the problems with
Master Documents, but I am using it very temporarily in VBA to put together
long documents. I have one interesting issue, and I wonder if anybody can
shed some light on the topic.

If there is no header or footer in a document, then the previous header or
footer will copy over into the document without a header or footer. If I go
to the source document and simply place a blank space in the header or
footer, assuring that a header or footer exists, then this problem does not
happen. I wonder if I should code this somehow, to add a space to the
header or footer if one does not exist, or just train the document builders
to make sure that a header or footer exists in page 1. It looks like I only
have to worry about this in page 1, because if a blank space exists in page
1, then the rest of the document seems to be OK. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Derek Hart

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Derek,

It's always important to mention the VERSION of Word involved in a problem.

I've never noticed the behavior you describe, but I don't often work with
Master Docs, either. That documents with no header/footer might behave
differently I can believe, because until the header/footer has been
"activated", it essentially doesn't exist. You see this in the user interface
by a paragraph mark that can't be deleted, once anything has ever been typed
into it.

Further more, "Same as previous" is generally on by default. You can't turn it
off for a single section, but the Master doc feature usually does this when
importing a new subdocument in order to preserve existing headers/footers. If
the Master Doc has headers/footers, I can see how the logic would be to carry
over the immediately preceding header/footer when none is present for the sake
of consistency.

So I'd say your approach is probably valid.

I am building a Master Document in code. I know all the problems with
Master Documents, but I am using it very temporarily in VBA to put together
long documents. I have one interesting issue, and I wonder if anybody can
shed some light on the topic.

If there is no header or footer in a document, then the previous header or
footer will copy over into the document without a header or footer. If I go
to the source document and simply place a blank space in the header or
footer, assuring that a header or footer exists, then this problem does not
happen. I wonder if I should code this somehow, to add a space to the
header or footer if one does not exist, or just train the document builders
to make sure that a header or footer exists in page 1. It looks like I only
have to worry about this in page 1, because if a blank space exists in page
1, then the rest of the document seems to be OK. Any thoughts on this?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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[Charles Kenyon]

At least in Word 2002 I can get rid of a phantom header by going into the
Header/Footer view and Ctrl-A, Delete. When I return to page view, the
header paragraph mark is gone. I think this has been true at least since
Word 97 but haven't double-checked in anything except 2002.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory:
<URL: http://addbalance.com/word/index.htm>

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide)
<URL: http://addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm>

See also the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Derek,

I am building a Master Document in code. I know all the problems
with Master Documents, but I am using it very temporarily in VBA to
put together long documents.

any special reason why you ARE indeed using the MD and not, say,
INCLUDEPICTURE fields ...?

just curious
..bob
...Word-MVP

 

[Derek Hart]

I needed a way to dynamically piece together multiple documents in code.
And these documents have different styles and formatting, so I needed a good
way to preserve all of that. Can the INCLUDEPICTURE fields do this?
Example?

Derek Hart

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Derek,

I needed a way to dynamically piece together multiple documents in
code. And these documents have different styles and formatting, so I
needed a good way to preserve all of that. Can the INCLUDEPICTURE
fields do this? Example?

I'm not quite sure, but I think no. OTOH, MD would face the same
problems; at least in the rather old (read: antique) versions of Word
where I've done some steps with Master Documents, I haven't seen
anything indicating that feature can separate styles from the
subdocuments.

But I might be wrong there (and this would make a good reason to use MD
where the workflow does not permit to really unify styles in the
individual chapter files beforehand, IMHO).

Greetinx
..bob
...Word-MVP

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Charles,

At least in Word 2002 I can get rid of a phantom header by going into the
Header/Footer view and Ctrl-A, Delete. When I return to page view, the
header paragraph mark is gone. I think this has been true at least since
Word 97 but haven't double-checked in anything except 2002.

Just double-checked in Word 2003 and 2000, and I see you're right.
<sigh>All the things they keep changing... The discussions about getting
rid of that paragraph mark that I can remember! Guess they were loud enough
the MS heard them

Cindy Meister

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Derek,

I needed a way to dynamically piece together multiple documents in code.
And these documents have different styles and formatting, so I needed a good
way to preserve all of that. Can the INCLUDEPICTURE fields do this?

Well, IncludePicture certainly can't Bob was probably meaning to type
IncludeText. But no, only the MasterDoc feature will retain section formatting
(headers, footers, margins, etc.)

I wouldn't have thought style formatting would be retained, however.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

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