Multiple sections on a page interfere with continuous page numbering

[Bob Dukes]

With Word 2002

I frequently have documents with multiple sections on a single page caused
by formatting several separate blocks of text on a single page with columns.
These docs typically contain a footer with a page number field inserted
using the page number toolbar button on the header/footer toolbar. Before
creating any columns the page numbering is fine, but often, after I insert
multiple blocks of columns, I can't get the page number at the bottom of the
page to continue from the previous page. Most of the time the page number
wants to start at 2 instead of continue from the previous page.

I usually work around this problem by turning off the Same as Previous
property and manually setting the page numbering to start on the correct
page number. Sometimes I have to format the page to start on the same page
number as the previous page in order for the next page number to display.
I'm not sure why.

If this problem only occures once in a document it isn't so bad, but
recently I had a doc that had this problem many times. When this happens, my
work around turns into a big headache as text is added or subtracted from
the doc causing the manual page starts I set to be incorrect. I'm sure I'm
not the first person to run into this problem and I'm pretty sure there's a
more practical solution than the one I've been using. Suggestions are much
appreciated. Thanks.

Bob Dukes

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Hi Bob,

The easiest way to deal with this, I have found, is to place your cursor in
the "small" section, hit CTRL-Enter to insert a page break, with the cursor
at the top of the new page, display the header/footer, you will now be in
the "small" section header/footer, set it to "same as Previous", close the
header and remove the page break. Do this for all the "small" sections and
you should be OK.

--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'd say the problem starts very early in the document. Let me make a stab at
guessing where you went wrong:

1. Instead of using the "Different first page" option to omit a page number
on page 1, you inserted a section break between pages 1 and 2.

2. Instead of allowing "Continue from previous section" to give you the
number 2 on page 2, you set "Start at" to 2 (probably you did this first, in
a misguided attempt to have the numbering start on page 2, before you
figured out you needed to insert a section break [though actually you didn't
need to]).

3. At that point, every new section you add also starts numbering at 2.

If the above scenario is fairly close to reality, it will be pretty
difficult to reverse because the only really straightforward way to do it is
to go back and remove *all* section breaks, then start from scratch and do
it right.

1. After removing all section breaks, go to the Layout tab of Page Setup and
check the box for "Different first page." This will give you a separate
First Page Header/Footer. Leave it empty.

2. Put your page number in the Footer. It will be 2, just like you want,
without any additional effort on your part.

3. Now go back and reinsert the needed section breaks around multi-column
sections. Since all the newly created sections will be set to "Continue from
previous section," your numbering should be continuous without any problems.

 

[Bob Dukes]

Thanks, Jean-Guy. Your suggestion does the trick. Any ideas for a macro that
will help automate this process? I have a document with 137 sections and
it's pretty time consuming creating a next page break for each section
without a visible footer so I can determine if the 'continue numbering from
previous section' setting is set properly.

Bob

Hi Bob,

The easiest way to deal with this, I have found, is to place your cursor in
the "small" section, hit CTRL-Enter to insert a page break, with the cursor
at the top of the new page, display the header/footer, you will now be in
the "small" section header/footer, set it to "same as Previous", close the
header and remove the page break. Do this for all the "small" sections and
you should be OK.

--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Bob Dukes]

Thanks for your detialed response, Susan, but I'm having some difficulty
relating to your suggestions.

1. The document I'm using as an example starts page numbering in Section 3,
Page 5. Page 1 is a Cover Page. Page 2 is a Cover Letter. Page 3 & 4 are
Table of Contents. There's a section break between the Cover Letter and the
TOC to accomodate header & footer text that begins with the TOC. There's
another section break after the TOC to accomodate the beginning of page
numbering in the footer on the page after the TOC. Using the 'Different 1st
page' option, as you suggest, to omit a page number on the page before the
page where numbering begins doesn't seem like a vialble option for the
scenario I describe above. Besides, I don't want to start page numbering
with page number 2. I want the page numbering to start with page number 1 on
the page after the TOC.

2. All visible footers throughout the document are formatted to 'Continue
[numbering] from previous page'.

3. All sections don't start numbering at 2.

4. Deleting all section breaks and reinserting needed section breaks around
multi-column sections seems to work, but with over 140 sections in the
document, this is a tedious task. The solution provided by J-G Marcil also
seems to work and has the advantage of seeming less labor intensive. I'm
interested in creating a macro that automates this process, if you have any
suggestions.

Thanks again.

Bob Dukes

I'd say the problem starts very early in the document. Let me make a stab at
guessing where you went wrong:

1. Instead of using the "Different first page" option to omit a page number
on page 1, you inserted a section break between pages 1 and 2.

2. Instead of allowing "Continue from previous section" to give you the
number 2 on page 2, you set "Start at" to 2 (probably you did this first, in
a misguided attempt to have the numbering start on page 2, before you
figured out you needed to insert a section break [though actually you didn't
need to]).

3. At that point, every new section you add also starts numbering at 2.

If the above scenario is fairly close to reality, it will be pretty
difficult to reverse because the only really straightforward way to do it is
to go back and remove *all* section breaks, then start from scratch and do
it right.

1. After removing all section breaks, go to the Layout tab of Page Setup and
check the box for "Different first page." This will give you a separate
First Page Header/Footer. Leave it empty.

2. Put your page number in the Footer. It will be 2, just like you want,
without any additional effort on your part.

3. Now go back and reinsert the needed section breaks around multi-column
sections. Since all the newly created sections will be set to "Continue from
previous section," your numbering should be continuous without any problems.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

JGM's solution is more appropriate for your situation, then. I can't help
with a macro, though, as I'm VBA-less.

Thanks for your detialed response, Susan, but I'm having some difficulty
relating to your suggestions.

1. The document I'm using as an example starts page numbering in Section 3,
Page 5. Page 1 is a Cover Page. Page 2 is a Cover Letter. Page 3 & 4 are
Table of Contents. There's a section break between the Cover Letter and the
TOC to accomodate header & footer text that begins with the TOC. There's
another section break after the TOC to accomodate the beginning of page
numbering in the footer on the page after the TOC. Using the 'Different 1st
page' option, as you suggest, to omit a page number on the page before the
page where numbering begins doesn't seem like a vialble option for the
scenario I describe above. Besides, I don't want to start page numbering
with page number 2. I want the page numbering to start with page number 1 on
the page after the TOC.

2. All visible footers throughout the document are formatted to 'Continue
[numbering] from previous page'.

3. All sections don't start numbering at 2.

4. Deleting all section breaks and reinserting needed section breaks around
multi-column sections seems to work, but with over 140 sections in the
document, this is a tedious task. The solution provided by J-G Marcil also
seems to work and has the advantage of seeming less labor intensive. I'm
interested in creating a macro that automates this process, if you have any
suggestions.

Thanks again.

Bob Dukes

I'd say the problem starts very early in the document. Let me make a stab at
guessing where you went wrong:

1. Instead of using the "Different first page" option to omit a page number
on page 1, you inserted a section break between pages 1 and 2.

2. Instead of allowing "Continue from previous section" to give you the
number 2 on page 2, you set "Start at" to 2 (probably you did this first, in
a misguided attempt to have the numbering start on page 2, before you
figured out you needed to insert a section break [though actually you didn't
need to]).

3. At that point, every new section you add also starts numbering at 2.

If the above scenario is fairly close to reality, it will be pretty
difficult to reverse because the only really straightforward way to do it is
to go back and remove *all* section breaks, then start from scratch and do
it right.

1. After removing all section breaks, go to the Layout tab of Page Setup and
check the box for "Different first page." This will give you a separate
First Page Header/Footer. Leave it empty.

2. Put your page number in the Footer. It will be 2, just like you want,
without any additional effort on your part.

3. Now go back and reinsert the needed section breaks around multi-column
sections. Since all the newly created sections will be set to "Continue from
previous section," your numbering should be continuous without any problems.

With Word 2002

I frequently have documents with multiple sections on a single page caused
by formatting several separate blocks of text on a single page with columns.
These docs typically contain a footer with a page number field inserted
using the page number toolbar button on the header/footer toolbar. Before
creating any columns the page numbering is fine, but often, after I insert
multiple blocks of columns, I can't get the page number at the bottom of the
page to continue from the previous page. Most of the time the page number
wants to start at 2 instead of continue from the previous page.

I usually work around this problem by turning off the Same as Previous
property and manually setting the page numbering to start on the correct
page number. Sometimes I have to format the page to start on the same page
number as the previous page in order for the next page number to display.
I'm not sure why.

If this problem only occures once in a document it isn't so bad, but
recently I had a doc that had this problem many times. When this

happens,

my
work around turns into a big headache as text is added or subtracted from
the doc causing the manual page starts I set to be incorrect. I'm sure I'm
not the first person to run into this problem and I'm pretty sure

there's

a
more practical solution than the one I've been using. Suggestions are much
appreciated. Thanks.

Bob Dukes

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Hi Bob,

Modify the following to fit your situation:
Are the page numbers in the header or footer? Are you using different
headers/footers within one section? etc.

Dim MySec As Section

For Each MySec In ActiveDocument.Sections
MySec.Headers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).LinkToPrevious = False
MySec.Footers(wdHeaderFooterPrimary).LinkToPrevious = False

If MySec.PageSetup.OddAndEvenPagesHeaderFooter = True Then
MySec.Headers(wdHeaderFooterEvenPages).LinkToPrevious = True
MySec.Footers(wdHeaderFooterEvenPages).LinkToPrevious = True
End If

If MySec.PageSetup.DifferentFirstPageHeaderFooter = True Then
MySec.Headers(wdHeaderFooterFirstPage).LinkToPrevious = True
MySec.Footers(wdHeaderFooterFirstPage).LinkToPrevious = True
End If


Next MySec


--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Hi Bob,

Just had another thought,
If you just want to make sure that the numbering is continuous, without
touching to the "Same as previous" setting, then try the following instead:

'_______________________________________
Public Sub ResetPageNumberingToContinuous()
Dim mySection As Section
Dim myHeadFoot As HeaderFooter

For Each mySection In ActiveDocument.Sections
For Each myHeadFoot In mySection.Headers
myHeadFoot.PageNumbers.RestartNumberingAtSection = False
Next
For Each myHeadFoot In mySection.Footers
myHeadFoot.PageNumbers.RestartNumberingAtSection = False
Next
Next

Set myHeadFoot = Nothing
Set mySection = Nothing

End Sub
'_______________________________________

But this won't insert a page number in a section that is different from a
previous one and that does not have a page number ...

--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Bob Dukes]

Jean-Guy,

You're a genius. Sorry it's taken so long to reply. Once I fixed my doc with
your original suggestion, I had other fish to fry. I just tried your code
below and it works like a dream - no modifications necessary. Thank you so
much for this. I probably run into this page numbering problem at least once
a month and your macro will be a big time saver. You're the best.

Bob

Hi Bob,

Just had another thought,
If you just want to make sure that the numbering is continuous, without
touching to the "Same as previous" setting, then try the following instead:

'_______________________________________
Public Sub ResetPageNumberingToContinuous()
Dim mySection As Section
Dim myHeadFoot As HeaderFooter

For Each mySection In ActiveDocument.Sections
For Each myHeadFoot In mySection.Headers
myHeadFoot.PageNumbers.RestartNumberingAtSection = False
Next
For Each myHeadFoot In mySection.Footers
myHeadFoot.PageNumbers.RestartNumberingAtSection = False
Next
Next

Set myHeadFoot = Nothing
Set mySection = Nothing

End Sub
'_______________________________________

But this won't insert a page number in a section that is different from a
previous one and that does not have a page number ...

--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Glad I could help.

--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org