Publisher 2003 Need advice

[Sardine]

Hi. I have MS Publisher 2003 installed on a desktop (Win 7/64 pro).
Pub is rarely used here but sometimes I need to use it for a non-profit
org. that I volunteer to help. The problem I'm having may be related to
my Pub training, which was none at all.

Here is the issue:
I have created a 22 page document, each page the same size, each page
has two columns, each page was made as a copy of the first page when
page 1 was still blank.

I created all columns without allowing them to continue to the next
column. Maybe I didn't do this correctly, is there a best way to do this?

After building all columns (22 pages times two columns = 44)I did some
editing here and there.

After I thought I was finished I noticed that the last line of some
columns was now below the lower text box boundary. This occurred in
columns that I had not edited. The top lines in the affected columns
were not moved down at all.

How does this happen?

How do I avoid it next time?

How do I find all these surprises without looking at every page?

I'm not comfortable with Pub retaining the document as I last saw it.
Now I print Pub files to PDF Creator (wonderful freeware) and use that
as the permanent, not changing document.

Thank you in advance for any and all suggestions.

Sardine

 

[Mary Sauer]

Maybe I'm not following you correctly. When you created your text boxes, were
the text boxes formatted to have columns or are you creating separate text boxes
for each column? Are you linking the boxes? If you link the text boxes the text
will flow into the next text box.

There is lots of help here
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH062524571033.aspx

 

[Sardine]

Maybe I'm not following you correctly. When you created your text boxes, were
the text boxes formatted to have columns or are you creating separate text boxes
for each column? Are you linking the boxes? If you link the text boxes the text
will flow into the next text box.

There is lots of help here
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH062524571033.aspx

Mary:
I created a Pub page that had 2 columns.
I then created 2 text boxes, one filling each column.
Now I copied this page over and over until I had 22 pages.
At this point I started adding text to the columns. If the text wouldn't
fit, then Pub would ask me if I wanted the text to roll to the next
column. I always said "no" and then reduced the font size, the line
spacing, or whatever to let me have my full text showing in its column.
Only about one third of the columns needed to ask me that question.

This worked fine for a few days as I edited spelling, grammar, or other
mistakes. Then I started to see some columns with their last few lines
missing. Actually not missing but "out of view". I fixed these as
mentioned above.

I'm beginning to feel that I can't trust Pub files to always show on my
screen the same way they appeared the day before. I'm paranoid I guess.
I have to look at every page and column after doing any editing on any page.

I can deal with this on a small job but what would I do with a large
document of many pages?

Thank you,

Sardine

 

[Mary Sauer]

Long documents are best done in Word.

That said, have you tried using one text box on the page; formatting it with two
columns? Right-click the text box, format text box, Text box tab, Columns...
button.

You can go to the top of the second column with a Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut.

You also can change the margins on text boxes, it will give you a bit more room.

Are you copying text from another program?

 

[Sardine]

Long documents are best done in Word.

That said, have you tried using one text box on the page; formatting it with two
columns? Right-click the text box, format text box, Text box tab, Columns...
button.

You can go to the top of the second column with a Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut.

You also can change the margins on text boxes, it will give you a bit more room.

Are you copying text from another program?

Mary:

I think you are right about using Word (or anything else) rather than Pub.

As a test, I'll try the single text box per page and add columns as you
suggest. This had not even entered my mind as something to try.

Yes, I'm copying text into Pub pages. The text was first extracted from
an existing PDF file, cleaned up in Word (I couldn't do it in Pub) and
then pasted into Pub. Sounds like I am asking for problems doing it this
way.

Thank you for the advice.

Sardine