Query with dictionary-style headers

[Andy]

I am using Word 2003 to compile a dictionary of films and am trying to put
the film titles in the header on each page.

For instance, on a page listing Godfather 1, 2 and 3, I am trying to get the
header to read Godfather 1 - Godfather 3. I have set all the titles as
Heading 2, and have used two StyleRef calls, one for the top of the page and
one for the bottom: everything seems to work smoothly.

The problem that I am having is that on a page which only has one film,
Godzilla, the header then reads Godzilla - Godzilla. Is there some way of
checking the last heading against the first on the page, and if they are the
same, supressing the second StyleRef entry? Or do I have to go through all
the pages that have only one heading, and manually remove the second StyleRef
entry?

Would appreciate any help; and sorry if I'm not being particularly clear.

Thanks!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't think there's any easy way to do this, and if you're using
"dictionary-style" headings, I wouldn't advise it, as consistency (even when
it is redundant) is preferable to unpredictability.

 

[qumranandy]

My dictionary is formatted as one big table with three columns - the Greek

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Have you read the Help topic about dictionary-style headings using the
StyleRef field? You would need to use different styles for the Greek and
Hebrew words and use the StyleRef field to reference them.

 

[qumranandy]

Yep. And it doesn't matter if the entries are all part of a table?

 

[qumranandy]

Dear Suzanne,
It seems that I have to reformat the whole document - remove the table and
use paragraph formatting. Could you run that through with me for four
columns of listings? 1) I type the Greek word then TAB, then the Hebrew
sentence, then TAB, then the verse number, then TAB, then the Herbrew word
that corresponds to the Greek word in column one. The Greek words in column
one (but there are no more columns, since the table is gone) must have some
kind of style name (special font, font-size), that the header reads off to
make the header. Sounds like a mess.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I see no reason why this should not work with a table. If you apply a given
style to the Greek words and a StyleRef field for that style and a different
style for the Hebrew words and a StyleRef \l field for that style, it should
work as you wish. Note that you can define character styles as Default
Paragraph Font + Language: Greek and Default Paragraph Font + Language:
Hebrew and apply them to the entire corresponding columns. They don't
actually have to have any different formatting (language or otherwise)--just
different names, and of course they could be paragraph styles as well, since
each table cell is presumably a paragraph.

I actually tried this, and in fact, although I tried to add language
formatting, it didn't work (perhaps because I don't have proofing tools
installed for Greek or Hebrew; I can add French or Spanish to a character
style), but the important thing is the style name. In any case, when I
applied the Greek style to the first column and the Hebrew style to the last
column, I had no difficulty picking up the content of the first (Greek) cell
on a page with one StyleRef field and the last (Hebrew) cell on the page
with a StyleRef \l field.

 

[qumranandy]

Thanks, Suzanne. Your post encouraged me to use WORD help "Create a
dictionary-style header" and "Create a new style", and it worked. I made a
new document of a three-column table with all Greek (unicode) in column 1 and
all Hebrew in column 3. The document is one page + 3 table rows long. The
range of Greek words for each page appears in the header of the page.
Perhaps word help needs to be revised to include your "I see no reason why
this should not work with a table".

 

[qumranandy]

How about this, Suzanne? I want the Greek words to appear as described, but
in the header I want the English translations to appear. I.e., if the first
Greek word on the page is PAIDOS ("boy") and the last is AGAPH ("love") I
want the header for the page to read "Boy - Love". I don't want "Boy" and
"Love" to appear in the print version of the list in the Greek column. That
is, I want the English correspondences to be hidden tags that only appear in
the header. I do something similar to this with my Biblical index, where I
have to tag each Biblical reference in such a way that in the index the
Biblical books appear in order: Genesis - Exodus etc., not Amos-Barnabas etc.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Now you're asking for the pretty much impossible, I think. The problem is
that the *only* direct formatting that a StyleRef field will pick up is
Hidden formatting, so you can't insert the English word as Hidden text.
(This is something the Word MVPs have asked the Word developers to change,
but the request has not yet been granted.)

Something that does work but would be extremely difficult to maintain is
this:

1. Add a fourth column in which you type the English words, formatted with a
distinctive style.

2. Add the appropriate StyleRef fields in your header to pick up the first
and last instances of this word.

3. When you have finished typing all the English words (and won't need to
access the column again), access Table Properties and make these changes:

a. If you haven't done so already, disable auto resizing for the table
(Table tab, Options).

b. Select the English column, click Options on the Cell tab and set the
left and right cell margins to 0". Clear the check box for "Wrap text" and
check the one for "Fit text" (even so, you may have to define exact row
heights to make this work).

c. On the Cell tab and the Column tab, set Cell/Column width to 0".

This *does* work, but I think you'd find it quite difficult to adjust the
other column widths without making a hash of the table. The table is
actually more or less unusable after you've done this, I find. It's too bad
Word doesn't have a provision for hiding columns as Excel does.

 

[qumranandy]

Ok, Suzanne. Before I try this, consider this:
I'm publishing the reconstruction of a scroll of 1-2 Samuel in Hebrew, and
the left-column entries in the document, which is nothing but a 2-column
table, are so: 24,5, 24,6 etc. with "24" column number of the scroll and "6"
line number (ancient scrolls were in lined columns rolled around two rods).
In the right table-column is information about a word in the line. There can
be between zero entries and 30 (?)per scroll-line. If I switch the left
table-column from line numbers of the scroll to verse numbers of the Bible, I
would have at each row the verse in which the word appears, so 15:6, 15:7
etc. for 1 Samuel 15:6, 15:7 etc. In the header I would have "1 Samuel" and
"through" as constants with fields for the first verse on the page and last
verse. Problem is, when I reach 2 Samuel somewhere in the middle how do I
change my constant to "2 Samuel" in the header? Question 2: You solved the
dictionary header for the table with one sour note: It only works if every
cell in the left-column is full. If I've got five lines of information in
the right column for one Greek word in the left, I prefer to leave the
left-column blank, until a new Greek word comes up. Or, in the case of what
was just discussed, until a new verse comes up - that is type "15:6" in the
left-column but then have ten blank left cells until "15:7" begins - and
still get my dictionary header.

 

[qumranandy]

You're right, Suzanne. That's a nogo - squunching the column to nothing.
The problem now is to get the first cell at the top of a page (assuming it is
blank, since it repeats what was already written) to access the information
from the last non-empty cell of the previous page and load it automatically
so that it both appears on the new page and gets inserted into the header for
that page. I used to do that all the time in my programming days for the
insurance company. But the puchcard era is over, and now the solution is
built into the software. Correct?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The StyleRef that reads the first cell should be searching backward and
*should* reflect the most recent occurence of a style. Is it not doing this?
Make sure that you don't have the style applied to empty cells, as that will
generate an empty field. When a cell is empty, substitute Normal or some
other style.

 

[qumranandy]

Yeh, that works. But I don't see why when I merge all the left cells that
are empty into one cell that spans a page-break, Word doesn't go back to the
previous page (page x) and put that Greek word in the header at the top of
page x+1. Because the information in the right columns at the top of page
x+1 applies to the Greek word in the left column at the bottom of page x.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Yes, I would expect this to work, too, but if it doesn't, I guess it
doesn't.