page breaks auto-inserted and pages renumbered when going to print

[cherrew]

Word 2003, SP2.

This doc is 105 pgs. There are 16 pages of front matter that are numbered in
lowercase roman numerals, and then pages 1-88 (all pages use same layout; no
left/right). There are 8 tables, 38 figures (some inserted files, some Word
art, some both), a TOC, a list of figures and list of tables, and an index.
There are a lot of reference fields and manually inserted breaks.

When sent to print to make a PDF (both Adobe PDF and PS printer drivers were
tried), the front matter numbering mysteriously changes to be all page 19,
and breaks (both section and page) are inserted before some reference fields,
ruining pagination (from 1-88 to 1-94).

I've tried working only in Normal view with background pagination turned
off, but as soon as Print is selected, the view changes to Print view, the
breaks inserted (in exactly the same positions every time), and the "iii"
pages turned to "19"s.

Often printing these docs (oh, there's more than one doc based on the same
file) also hangs Word.

I'll soon be moving these docs to a master doc set up, and modularizing the
content for better single-sourcing and outputting to HTML, but in the
meantime, I need to release at least one PDF.

help, while I still have hair!

 

[Stefan Blom]

Well, printing always causes repagination; there is no way around
that.

Since Word cross-references make use of hidden bookmarks, the breaks
(especially page breaks, but also paragraph and section breaks) could
be the problem. The reason is that if a break was inserted at the
beginning of a cross-referenced paragraph, the bookmark used by Word
in a cross-reference field may have been extended to include the
break. That way, "extra" information is included in the
cross-reference (which would explain why extra pages are inserted).

In the future, make sure never to insert a break at the beginning of a
paragraph; add it to the end of the previous paragraph instead.

To fix the problem, start by deleting the manual page breaks. Apply
"Page break before" formatting (in Format | Paragraph, Line and Page
Breaks tab) to the relevant paragraphs.

The next step is to redefine the bookmarks for the cross-references to
enclose the correct text. Here's how to do it: Select a
cross-referenced paragraph. Choose Insert | Bookmark. Click the
"Hidden bookmarks" option and then click the "Location" button. The
name of the bookmark at the insertion point should be highlighted.
Click Add to redefine the bookmark. Repeat for each of the other
cross-references that are incorrect.

Finally, select the whole document and then press F9 to update all
fields.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[cherrew]

Thanks for the info, Stefan. It made a big difference, but did not fix
everything.

As instructed:

o I deleted the manual page breaks, substituting the use of the page break
before/keep with next paragraph format options.

o I updated the references, and this seemed to fix the problem with Word
inserting breaks immediately preceding a reference field (it would literally
place it after the word and space, "see " used in the reference phrase, as in
"See <Heading reference> on page xx"). Note however, that these paragraphs
did NOT have manual page breaks associated with them (neither before nor
after the paragraph). AND with one reference it made no difference (see
below).

o I F9'ed selected text in the doc to update the references.

The doc looked clean.

When printing to PDF, I found that only one reference had a break inserted
(over and over, using different print drivers), and that was in the front
matter. Also, the 16 front matter pages were still being renumbered to all be
page 19.

I removed the offending reference, opting instead to type it in (who needs a
link?), and changed the section page numbering to start on page ii, instead
of continuing from the previous section (which was the title page).

This workaround stopped the pages from being renumbered. However, there are
no longer any links for any references, the TOC, or lists (figures & tables).

I checked the conversion settings, bookmark and link options, which *were*
enabled, and tried printing to PDF again. I tried using the Adobe PDF print
driver, and a PS print driver, and then using Distiller to convert to PDF. In
both cases, the TOC and references were not in the PDFs.

I can go with what I have, but have always thought it unprofessional to have
items that should be links, but are not (e.g., the TOC). It might have to
suffice if there is no resolution presented (I tried to find broken links in
PDFs as a discussion subject, to no avail).

I'll look for further posts. Thank you again, Stefan.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Any undesired contents (excess text, paragraph returns, manual page
breaks, or section breaks) in a cross-reference comes from a hidden
bookmark which, for some reason, is "bigger" than it should be.

Deleting and re-inserting a problematic reference (did you mean
cross-reference?) is sometimes the easiest solution.

But I don't see how that affects what links are clickable in the PDF?
Maybe you need to change some PDF setting? For help with this, you may
want to ask in a forum intended for your PDF software.

If you want to do more testing in Word, you can display fields (press
Alt+F9) and nonprinting characters (press the ¶ button on the Standard
toolbar). Place the cursor inside a bookmarked paragraph and display
the bookmark name (as described in my previous message); then use the
Go To button to have Word select the text. You should now be able to
tell exactly what is enclosed by the bookmark.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

Thanks for the info, Stefan. It made a big difference, but did not fix
everything.

As instructed:

o I deleted the manual page breaks, substituting the use of the page break
before/keep with next paragraph format options.

o I updated the references, and this seemed to fix the problem with Word
inserting breaks immediately preceding a reference field (it would literally
place it after the word and space, "see " used in the reference phrase, as in
"See <Heading reference> on page xx"). Note however, that these paragraphs
did NOT have manual page breaks associated with them (neither before nor
after the paragraph). AND with one reference it made no difference (see
below).

o I F9'ed selected text in the doc to update the references.

The doc looked clean.

When printing to PDF, I found that only one reference had a break inserted
(over and over, using different print drivers), and that was in the front
matter. Also, the 16 front matter pages were still being renumbered to all be
page 19.

I removed the offending reference, opting instead to type it in (who

needs a