sections and margins

[Patty]

Dear Word MVPs:

My office just switched from WordPerfect to MS Word (2000
and XP).

We have a strange preprinted letterhead which has a 2
inch top and left margin, so all our documents need a
change of margins for the second page, which becomes a
normal 1 inch all the way around.

I used to have delay codes in the documents in
WordPerfect so that when the first page break came, after
people had typed enough for a second page, the margins
would change.

With Word, I have saved the document templates with
section breaks, but if you put in a section break, and
later change the text so that the naturally occurring
page break changes, the section break moves too and you
then have the margin change in the wrong place.

Is there any way to put in margin formatting for the
beginning of page two that won't change no matter how you
change the way the text flows?

Thanks

-Patty

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/Letterhead.htm for instructions on how
to set up this type of document (which does not require a section break).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Patty]

Suzanne:

Thank you for your reply. I checked that document before
posting my message. I understand how to use Different
First Page, but that only applies to Headers/Footers, not
margins, right?

-Patty

 

[Patty]

Dear Jesse:

I understand sections very well and I am not only the
office MIS, but I also give private lessons in many types
of software. I challenge you to say how Word can do this.

Remember, I am looking for margin settings, not
Header/Footer settings, that cannot be moved by typing
text.

Thank you,

Patty

 

[Mark Tangard]

Patty,

The answer is on the page Suzanne referred you to. Scroll
way down toward the end to where it says "More complex
letterhead." Basically you place one or more borderless
empty text boxes in the first-page header layer, sized and
positioned so as to bully the document text into the shape
you're after.

The way Word does this, it actually *is* about headers, not
about margins. Note that I said "header LAYER" above. The
header layer is not necessarily just the space at the top
of the page that we normally think of when we hear the word
header. It's a layer, a "story," of the document, and in
addition to providing Stuff For The Tops Of Pages, it can
hold objects (like empty text boxes) that act to manipulate
material in the main text layer.

If you're not familiar with any of these concepts (e.g.,
text boxes), post back. (Also, get used to terminology
that doesn't always seem to be named for its function --
Text boxes that don't hold text? Headers that aren't at
the top? It's not bizzarro world, it's just Word...)

 

[Patty]

Thank you so much. Your answer is a godsend. What a great
idea.

-Patty

 

[Patty]

Suzanne:

I checked the document again after someone else told me
where to look in it.

Thank you so much. Your answer is a godsend. What a great
idea.

-Patty

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Not my idea, of course; I'm just the one who got around to writing it up.
And it does have a few drawbacks; I seem to be the only Word user in the
world who doesn't have problems with indents next to frames and text boxes.
You'll also see some bizarre effects where paragraphs cross over from page 1
to page 2 because Word isn't up to the strain of figuring out the line
breaks and sometimes leaves widows or moves more text than necessary to
avoid them.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Patty]

Thanks again. I will report my experiences. This
newsgroup seems to be very well-run.

-Patty