pagination

[shirley_isaac]

Version: 2008

I paginated a document of 12 pages, and 4 of the 12 pages did not take the pagination, i.e., no number appeared at the bottom of the page. I manually inserted a page number going to View, then Header and Footer. However, by doing this, the number 1 appeared on the first page, which I had previously omitted. I tried to repaginate, indicating that the first page should have the number omitted, but this was unsuccessful. The number 1 still showed on the first page.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Shirley:

Have a look at the page number topics in the help: particularly "Hide the
page number on the first page".

A Word document contains one or more sections (only one, unless you insert
more section breaks).

Each section break has potentially three headers: First Page, Right Page,
Left Page, and up to three Footers (again: First Page, Left Page, and Right
Page).

Whether any or all of these headers and footers appear, is determined by the
settings you make in the Format>Document>Layout>Headers and Footers dialog,
for each section in the document.

Taming section breaks provide fertile employment for the psychiatric
industry. It's something I had to work at for a while before I understood
what I said above, and managed to control the section breaks in documents
and what I set them up to do

Once you do learn it, you will find it's easy to get exactly what you want.
But for me, there was no option other than to sit down and work at it.

Cheers

Version: 2008

I paginated a document of 12 pages, and 4 of the 12 pages did not take the
pagination, i.e., no number appeared at the bottom of the page. I manually
inserted a page number going to View, then Header and Footer. However, by
doing this, the number 1 appeared on the first page, which I had previously
omitted. I tried to repaginate, indicating that the first page should have the
number omitted, but this was unsuccessful. The number 1 still showed on the
first page.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[shirley]

Thanks, John. I might be mistaken, but I think there's a bug in the system, meaning the pagination option doesn't work right. I figured out a way to eliminate the number on page one, but then the numbers on 3, 6 and 7 also disappear. It's not a huge problem: I just have to formate the document one way to print pages 2ff. and then reformate the document to print the first page. But I shouldn't have to do this, which indicates to me that there is something not quite right with Office 2008.

Shirley

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I think the pagination in Office 2008 works fine, but it sounds like
your document might be set up in a way that you don't quite understand.
It's not clear what you are doing--for instance, what did you mean when
you said "I paginated the document" or "tried to repaginate"?

I'm guessing that you start a new section on pages 3, 6, and 7. When you
said "omit page number on first page" what it really does is create a
First Page Header that doesn't have a number, and it does that in every
section, as it's a document setting. Unlink the First Page Header on
page 3 from the previous header, and then enter a page number in it.

There's a good discussion of headers/footers here:
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/HeaderFooter.htm

and general info on sections here:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/WorkWithSections.htm

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Shirley -

No disrespect intended, but the issue as you're reporting it is not common
in Word 2008, nor is anything like it. There's evidently something else at
play with that particular document, and as John suggested the most likely is
section breaks. There are features which create section breaks automatically
(such as applying multiple columns) so you may not even realize they exist.
It's also possible that the document is corrupt in some way.

Make sure you have the non-printing characters displayed (¶) so you can
readily identify where any section breaks might be. They'll be indicated by
double blue lines & most easily found if you use Draft view (they can be
hard to spot in Print Layout view depending on where they actually occur).

If you really want to test Word's page numbering fidelity, just create a new
blank document, then type the following:

=rand(15,60)

Press return to generate an 11 page doc filled with dummy text.

Then go to Insert> Page Numbers..., select Bottom of Page, any Alignment,
and make sure there's no check in the "Show number on first page" box. That
should add page numbers to pages 2-11 accordingly with no number on page 1.
If you happen to find that it *doesn't* work as advertised let us know
exactly what did occur - there's always the possibility of an error
elsewhere, but not very likely.

If the above test does work as expected we'll know that Word/page numbering
is working correctly. In that case we'll need to know more about the
structure & content of the doc that's giving you the trouble.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[shirley_isaac]

No disrespect was taken, until (perhaps) the topic of respect was introduced.

I did the test recommended, and this is what happened: I got 9 and 1/2 pages of text paginated correctly followed by three blank pages (no text) with the numbers 11, 12, and 13 on the bottom.

As to my document, there are section breaks. But I'm not sure that this explains the difficulty I'm having. When I go to Header and Footer and click on the number on the first page to delete it, the number is deleted from random pages. What I mean by random is this: the number disappears from page 6 and 7, but not pages 8-12, even though pages 6 through to page 12 all belong to section 5. (Page one belongs to section 1.) I will keep troubleshooting this for awhile using the helps that have been provided by these postings.

Thank you, all.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I did the test recommended, and this is what happened: I got 9 and 1/2 pages of text paginated correctly followed by three blank pages (no text) with the numbers 11, 12, and 13 on the bottom.

Okay, so basic pagination is working fine. The blank pages are probably
a screen refresh issue--scrolling around or close and re-open should
fill in all the text.

As to my document, there are section breaks. But I'm not sure that this explains the difficulty I'm having. When I go to Header and Footer and click on the number on the first page to delete it, the number is deleted from random pages. What I mean by random is this: the number disappears from page 6 and 7, but not pages 8-12, even though pages 6 through to page 12 all belong to section 5. (Page one belongs to section 1.) I will keep troubleshooting this for awhile using the helps that have been provided by these postings.

You are using 2008? I sometimes see an issue where the text of the
header/footer vanishes and returns as I type in the
header/footer--another refresh problem. Check whether the numbers exist
in Print Preview for accuracy.

What OS are you running, on what machine, and how much memory? Does the
document have columns, textboxes, or a lot of images?

Thank you, all.

Glad to help.

 

[shirley_isaac]

I'm using a Macbook OS X with 2 GB memory. The document is all text, no images, no columns, no textboxes (whatever those are!). It's just straight writing. But I did change the margins on several pages. That's what caused section breaks to appear.

Shirley

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hmm, memory should be fine. Did you check in Print Preview to make sure
Word isn't just lying to you about whether the numbers are there?

Yep, changing the margins will create section breaks. Go into View |
Draft. Do you have any Continuous section breaks, as opposed to Next
Page Section breaks? Because those could create weirdness.

Can I ask why you are changing the margins on several pages? There might
be a way to achieve the same visual effect without creating all the
section breaks.

Alternatively, at this point, on a COPY, you might just delete all the
section breaks (View | Draft, then just select and hit delete), get the
page numbers right, then re-apply the margin changes.

By the way, when people ask for version of OS, they want the detailed
version--10.4.11? 10.5.2? That information is under Apple Menu | About
This Mac.

 

[shirley_isaac]

I changed the bottom margin on several pages to accommodate more lines of text in the footnotes. I tried deleting the section breaks -- was unable. They're stuck there.

The MacHelp is not helpful. It's actually very unhelpful.

 

[shirley_isaac]

I don't have any Continuous section breaks, only next page breaks.

 

[shirley_isaac]

I resolved the problem, but in a way that would seem to indicate the pagination system has not been well designed. First I made all the margins on every page the same. Then I eliminated the page numbers. Then I changed the margins on two of the pages to accommodate more text. Then I added page numbers, which appeared only on pages 6-12. Then I highlighted the text on each page, 2 through 5, and inserted a page number, indicating that the number should appear on the first page. It didn't appear on the first page (i.e., page 1), but that was the only way to get the number to appear on those pages (2 through 5).

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I'm glad you solved the problem.

Changing the bottom margins on individual pages to accommodate more text
is NOT something that Word is designed for. I wouldn't recommend it, I
think it causes more problems than it helps, and pagination is just one
of the confusions that can occur. For instance, you've now got all these
next page section breaks in the doc. Text cannot flow across a section
break. Every printer flows text slightly differently, so if you email
this document and someone else prints it, then the page breaks might
wind up in the wrong place and your document look a mess. In general, if
you can avoid section breaks, you should, and if you ever find that you
have a section break where there is not a logical break in your text,
then you are just heading for problems.

Manual management of such things is basically the way to spend a lot of
time fighting Word instead of making it work for you, as you've seen.

You might consider the options discussed here instead, or for next time:
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/BottomLine.htm

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

PS. And if anyone might be wondering why changing margins should require
a section break in the first place, see here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/PagesInWord.html

That is fundamentally how Word operates. It is NOT a page layout
application, and focusing on "pages" in Word will drive you crazy every
time.

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Shirley,

Following on from what Daiya said: I publish reports (via PDF) all the time
directly from Word, and I've collected a lot of simple techniques to
overcome the problems you're experiencing.

Take a look at Appendix A: The main 'minimum maintenance' features of my
documents, starting on page 164 of some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

To get a little more, or less, text on to a page, see page 177.

It takes an hour or two to get the hang of these techniques, but it's an
excellent investment: I save about 20% of my time by using them compared
with using Word as a typewriter! ;-)

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the Americas and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
====================================================

 

[shirley_isaac]

Thank you, Clive and Daiya. I will definitely take a look at "Bend Word to Your Will" (what a clever title!).

Shirley

 

[CyberTaz]

You think the title's clever - wait 'til you see the content

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac