Unwanted introduction of many blank pages

[Ian]

Using Word 2002 SP-1 under XP Professional.

I am editing a document created by someone else using Word 97. As far as
I can tell, he has not been "clever" or tried to make Word jump through
hoops -- on the surface it seems to be a simple, straightforward
document. However, he has defined a few heading styles, but the
definitions look OK to me.

When editing in Normal view, everything seems fine. But when switching
to Print Layout view, many (e.g 10-12) blank pages appear at various
points in the document. (These blank pages also appear in the hardcopy,
so I don't think it's a display problem).

Any ideas as to why/how these blank pages keep appearing and how I can
get rid of them? I suspect it may have something to do with the Heading
1 style, which included a "Page Break Before". I have removed this
option from the definition, but it doesn't fix the problem.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If he has used Odd Page section breaks, then Word will insert blank even
pages as needed when the previous section ends on an odd page. This is
normal. You can see them in Print Preview if you select a two-page spread.

--
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.

 

[Ian]

If he has used Odd Page section breaks, then Word will insert blank even
pages as needed when the previous section ends on an odd page. This is
normal. You can see them in Print Preview if you select a two-page spread.

Thanks Suzanne. But I realize I didn't explain the problem clearly
enough. The blank pages are consecutive (e.g. I'm getting 10-12
*consecutive* blank pages). They are not distributed throughout the
document, and there is only one section in the whole document.

However, in desperation, I have now "fixed" the problem, by selecting
the whole document and removing the "Page Break Before" option on all
paragraphs. Not very scientific, but I don't have time to fight
Microsoft's quirks!

 

[sf]

Thanks Suzanne. But I realize I didn't explain the problem clearly
enough. The blank pages are consecutive (e.g. I'm getting 10-12
*consecutive* blank pages). They are not distributed throughout the
document, and there is only one section in the whole document.

However, in desperation, I have now "fixed" the problem, by selecting
the whole document and removing the "Page Break Before" option on all
paragraphs. Not very scientific, but I don't have time to fight
Microsoft's quirks!

Hmmm. I just highlight and hit "enter".