Why does text move in document with headers and footers?

[tflipt]

I have recently been up graded at my office to Word 2007. Lots to learn.
Problem today is we use templates set up in approximately Word 2003 and then
program is run by an outside source -hospital atmosphere. I use the same
templates 2003 users use. Never had problem before of when typing continued
and then Page 2, etc of text moving within the document and altering where
contin... and Page .... are printed and viewed on a document/report. There
are headers and footers built into the template. Is this an issue of Word
2003 and Word 2007 reading the template? One other user of templates with me
and she is on 2003. Suggestions?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

From your description, we cannot tell what you mean by "text moving". It
could however be caused by the printer driver not being compatible with Word
2007. Check the printer manufacturer's website for an updated printer
driver.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Gordon Bentley-Mix]

Could be an AutoText issue as well, as I'm having a similar problem. I have
several templates developed under 2003 that use AutoText to swap the footer
content depending on whether the document is to be printed on plain paper or
letterhead. The graphic elements in the footers do not stay anchored and move
up the page in 2007, which is probably due (in part) to the way graphics are
handled in 2007 but I suspect may also be related to the use of AutoText
instead of BuildingBlocks. (This is the same problem that you looked at for
me previously Doug; now that I have 2007 I can see what's going on.)

I don't have a solution yet as the need isn't pressing at this point, but it
may be worth investigating...
--
Cheers!
Gordon

Uninvited email contact will be marked as SPAM and ignored. Please post all
follow-ups to the newsgroup.

 

[tflipt]

Okay, the text moving is literally "text moving". I can watch it on my screen
sometimes drop. Which equals: I.E. I type continued.... at the bottom of
page 1 and then begin my next page with (below the header) Page 2, enter-
Report name - etc. Upon trying to print the report or even just on Print
Preview my text moves (Usually) up with my Page 2, etc., text onto Page 1.
So Page 1 now contains cont.... and Page 2, Report name, etc. all on the
bottom of page 1 Above where my footer is built in. Any better? Thanks for
responding by the way!

 

[tflipt]

I am not paying anybody for this info. It is in a hospital setting and
someone else can pay you if they want to. If you are serious, just don't
respond. I am serious about needing any info. though. Doug: Seriously, you
would suggest a printer issue on this that I have trouble with on my monitor
before it hits the printer? I'm NO pro but I just can't understand why this
would affect my documents. --Thank goodness I don't have to. I just need to
get this figured out on an average dudette's terminology to get going.
Thanks. t

 

[Jonathan West]

I am not paying anybody for this info. It is in a hospital setting and
someone else can pay you if they want to. If you are serious, just don't
respond. I am serious about needing any info. though. Doug: Seriously,
you
would suggest a printer issue on this that I have trouble with on my
monitor
before it hits the printer? I'm NO pro but I just can't understand why
this
would affect my documents. --Thank goodness I don't have to. I just need
to
get this figured out on an average dudette's terminology to get going.
Thanks. t

The way Word displays text on the screen is affected by the printer driver.
This is a holdover from the days of primitive printers that couldn't handle
multiple fonts. If the printer driver is out of date or incompatible with
the current version of Word , it can affect screen display.

However, whether this is in fact your problem is impossible to say, because
you haven't provided enough information. Could you describe a sequence of
steps that (on your PC) reliably causes the text to move? Could you also
indicate how far and in what direction it moves?

This sort of information is what people will need if they are going to be
able to reproduce what you are experiencing and therefore advise you what is
happening and how to stop it.

By the way, read Doug's signature block properly. Like me, he is perfectly
willing to respond (for free) to people's followup questions if they are
*posted back here to the newsgroup*. All he is doing is discouraging people
from the expectation that they can have free private support from him by
email. There are something over 300 million users of Word out there, and the
only chance of these forums providing any kind of meaningful support on the
amount of volunteer effort available is if the answers can be seen by
everyone, reducing the amount of repetition of questions

 

[tflipt]

Thanks for the clarification on Doug's response and all. I got worried
because I can just see me presenting my supervisor with a bill from Microsoft
for this... Wow. I can't believe it could really be a printer problem. To an
average person/user like me it just doesn't compute. What happens is this:
I have templates that I work off of every day built in 2003 Word. Kind of
looks like this when I am through: text text text text.

Continued......................(return until next page) Page 2 (return)
Title (retn) Patient name (return) Patient # (return about 2 more times)
stop. Then the rest of the report continues. At this point I either select
Print Preview, mouse down, or print. Either way, the Page 2 and Patient name
both rise up to just under Continued........ which really if there are 3 or
more pages you can understand how these parts are moved up even more, i.e.
the entire 4+ lines moved up in the report. After straightening up all of
this problem in a report and it is printed, sometimes the lines are still
messed up on a 3rd page, etc. It does finally get straight but sometimes it
can take a few jabs. One page reports are okay and don't seem to have any
problems. I really appreciate all the help and suggestions Everyone is
providing. There is only one other person I have seen with the problem and
the Keep lines together and such are really the same band-aids as my going
back and reworking it myself but still a good reminder for other things.
Thank y'all.

 

[Gordon Bentley-Mix]

Continued......................(return until next page)
This looks to me like you're thinking that Word works like a typewriter;it
doesn't.

Instead of using a whole lot of blank lines to fill the page until the text
rolls over to the next page, try pressing Ctrl+Enter after "Continued..." to
insert what's called a "hard page break" (as opposed to the soft page breaks
that Word puts in automatically when it reaches the "bottom" of the page).

I suspect that the root cause of the problem is, as Jonathan said, a printer
driver issue, which is causing a disconnect between what Word considers to be
a "page" and what the printer says it is. Word thinks that a page is x lines
long, whereas the printer thinks it's x+n lines. Consequently, when you add a
lot of blank lines to get to x and roll over to the next page on the screen,
the printer thinks it still has n more lines to print in and so it does.

The hard page break removes all ambiguity; Word tells the printer "end the
page here" and the printer does - without the need to interpret all of those
blank lines or giving any consideration to how much room is left in the
printer's definition of a "page".

Of course the ultimate fix - in addition to not using Word as a glorified
typewriter and taking advantage of all of the functionality that a modern
word processor has to offer - is to have your IT department (and I would
assume that you have one what with this being a "hospital environment" and
all) to come in and install the correct printer drivers on your computer so
that what you see on the screen is at least pretty close to what gets
printed. There is a degree of communication between Word and the printer
(through the printer driver) that allows Word to render the document on the
screen so that it _should_ look like the printed document.
--
Cheers!
Gordon

Uninvited email contact will be marked as SPAM and ignored. Please post all
follow-ups to the newsgroup.

 

[Gordon Bentley-Mix]

You might also consider looking at using headers and footers rather than
putting this "wandering content" into the body of the document. Headers and
footers *always* get printed on the top and bottom of the page. If the
template is set up correctly, the page number, title, patient name and
patient number would automatically appear at the top of each page regardless
of how many pages there are. Getting "Continued..." to appear automatically
at the bottom of each page except the last would be a bit trickier, but a
good designer/developer could probably make it happen.

However, if it was my template, I'd probably just put the page number
(generated automatically using a page number field) at the _bottom_ of the
page and display the number of pages there as well. That way, if somebody
sees "Page 1 of 3" they (should) know that the report continues for another 2
pages...
--
Cheers!
Gordon

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follow-ups to the newsgroup.

 

[tflipt]

Man, I wish I had the money to pay you just cause. You all have given me
some huge helps and I am letting our IT Dpt have the results. I can't tell
you thank you enough. Hopefully something you gave me will help resolve this
problem. I forget about hard returns and stuff. I am spoiled to my little
world of templates albeit quite a hard world right now. I know now who to
locate when I have problems arise again.... are you ready? : ) tflipt

 

[Gordon Bentley-Mix]

Are we ready? Bring it on! <g>

And while you're at it, see if you can get your department head to spring
for a book on Word 2007. It's just different enough from 2003 to make
something like that very useful - even if it's just an "Idiot's" guide...
--
Cheers!
Gordon

Uninvited email contact will be marked as SPAM and ignored. Please post all
follow-ups to the newsgroup.