Word 2003 - different pagination on different documents

[aaron.shadis]

I have a question about Word document pagination in Word 2003. I have
two documents that are paginating differently. One word at the end of
one of the paragraphs kicks onto 4th line in one document but stays on
the 3rd line of the other. Both of these documents were created from
an documentation generation system written in VBA and both are based
on the Normal template on different user’s machines. The result of
this single extra line is that one document kicks onto 3 pages, while
the other is only 2 pages.

If I bring the 2 page and 3 page Word documents onto my machine they
seem to maintain this formatting. Meaning, the 2 page doc lets me fit
the extra work on the 3rd line of the paragraph all the time. If I
copy/paste the text from the 3 page doc into the 2 page doc it is able
to squeeze that word into the 3rd line of the paragraph, thus making
it a 2 page doc.

I’ve read about printer driver settings effecting onscreen pagination,
but I would think that bringing both docs to my machine would cause
them to be formatted the same (based on my print driver). But I’m not
seeing that.

I’ve also played around with Tools/Options/Compatibility switching
between 2002 and 2003 but have not found a setting that effects the
pagination as I’m seeing in the two docs.

Any ideas? Why is does my 2 page doc (with the extra word squeezed
onto the 3rd line of one of the paragraphs) act differently than my 3
page doc? Am I missing a setting somewhere?

Aaron

 

[finalword]

Did you check the page setup and header/footer spacing in these docs. Do
both documents contains exactly the same styles?

 

[aaron.shadis]

I have not done a complete comparison of all styles. I have checked
the Normal style bewteen the two docs and all the settings look the
same.

I thought about it being a difference in the user's Normal.dot file.
I had the user send me her Normal.dot but i was not able to reproduce
the specific pagination she is seeing on her machine.

One thing of interest: When I turn on Tools/Options/View/Text
Boundaries in the user's 2 page doc I can see the last word in the
problem paragraph sticks out just past the right side dotted boundary
line. On my 3 page doc the last word wraps to the next line.

Aaron

 

[finalword]

Interesting about the text boundaries and the word sticking out into the
margin. You could try applying a different style to that last paragraph and
then flipping it back to see if that helps. The paragraph formatting may be
off.

Also, make sure the Compatibility is set appropriately for both documents
and that Tools | Options | Save Tab | Disable features Introduced After is
NOT check.
Save both documents in the appropriate format locally.

You can also try copying the entire document EXCEPT the last paragraph mark
to a blank document and see what happens as far as the pagination.

I have also found lately that the default printer can sometimes impact the
page setup. Make sure to choose the same printer and see if this helps

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In the case of the sticking-out word, there are two possibilities to check.
Look at the ruler. Has the paragraph been given a negative right indent to
keep the word on this line? If not, select the paragraph and go to Format |
Font. On the Line and Page Breaks tab, see if the font has been Condensed.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

I have not done a complete comparison of all styles. I have checked
the Normal style bewteen the two docs and all the settings look the
same.

I thought about it being a difference in the user's Normal.dot file.
I had the user send me her Normal.dot but i was not able to reproduce
the specific pagination she is seeing on her machine.

One thing of interest: When I turn on Tools/Options/View/Text
Boundaries in the user's 2 page doc I can see the last word in the
problem paragraph sticks out just past the right side dotted boundary
line. On my 3 page doc the last word wraps to the next line.

Aaron

 

[aaron.shadis]

Thanks Susanne.

Neither of them have that setting checked.

Aaron

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'd be interested in having a look at the document that has the sticking-out
word. Email it to me if you can.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Thanks Susanne.

Neither of them have that setting checked.

Aaron

 

[aaron.shadis]

Thanks Susanne. I’ll send them along via email.

I’ve played around with the user’s Normal.dot some more and found
there is something in it that is causing the difference. Attaching
our problem doc to my own Normal (and clicking the “Automatically
update document style” checkbox, which I forgot to do the first time
around) changes the text back to the way it’s supported to be.
Pointing back to the user’s Normal and it goes back to sticking that
word out to the right. It’s something in that Normal.

Aaron

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I took a look at your docs and couldn't pin anything down, either. I was
about to send them along to someone at MS to take a look at, when I read
this post, which caused me to look at the definition of Normal style in the
problem doc. Note that it includes references to "Asian" and "Chinese
(PRC)"; I'd be willing to bet that's the issue. What's more difficult is
figuring out how to eradicate that formatting. I suspect you can't do it
without installing the Asian languages so that you get an extra tab on the
Font dialog. Even so, it may be necessary to rename the user's Normal.dot
and let Word generate a fresh copy.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Thanks Susanne. I’ll send them along via email.

I’ve played around with the user’s Normal.dot some more and found
there is something in it that is causing the difference. Attaching
our problem doc to my own Normal (and clicking the “Automatically
update document style” checkbox, which I forgot to do the first time
around) changes the text back to the way it’s supported to be.
Pointing back to the user’s Normal and it goes back to sticking that
word out to the right. It’s something in that Normal.

Aaron

 

[aaron.shadis]

I've already had the user delete her Normal and have Word recreate
it. We get the same outcome. I also noticed the (Asian) Chinese
(PRC) font reference in the problem doc after I email them and was
trying to figure out how to remove it. But after I closed down Word
and open the docs again, now I can see the Asian font reference in
both good and bad docs. Very strange. I feel like I'm entering the
Word Flackyness zone. (A place I've spent ALOT of time in over the
past few years.)

If you look at File/Properties/Summary in the problem doc you can see
the original user's name see she's got Asian characters in the
'Company' field. The good doc does not have that. Maybe the user has
some additional Asian language add-ons loaded into Word? I'm going to
check on that.

Aaron

 

[aaron.shadis]

OK, what I was doing earlier today....

"Attaching
our problem doc to my own Normal (and clicking the “Automatically
update document style” checkbox, which I forgot to do the first time
around) changes the text back to the way it’s supported to be.
Pointing back to the user’s Normal and it goes back to sticking that
word out to the right. It’s something in that Normal."

.... no longer works. Point the problem doc to my good normal no
longer fixes the problem. This is full on Word Flackiness zone!

Aaron

 

[aaron.shadis]

OK, more info. Pointing the problem doc to my clean Normal worked
this morning, but not this afternoon. But, pointing to an old Normal
I had saved from a few weeks ago did revert the text back to the good
formatting. Is this "setting" able to spread into other Normals/
templates?

Aaron

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The Asian languages are definitely the problem, and I'm afraid I don't know
how to eradicate them, but if you google perhaps you can find more info. You
might also try posting in the microsoft.public.word.international.features
newsgroup.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

OK, what I was doing earlier today....

"Attaching
our problem doc to my own Normal (and clicking the “Automatically
update document style” checkbox, which I forgot to do the first time
around) changes the text back to the way it’s supported to be.
Pointing back to the user’s Normal and it goes back to sticking that
word out to the right. It’s something in that Normal."

.... no longer works. Point the problem doc to my good normal no
longer fixes the problem. This is full on Word Flackiness zone!

Aaron

 

[aaron.shadis]

I had the users check on any installed or turn-on language support.
They reported back that the user in question had 20+ languages enabled
in her Office Language support. (Start/Programs/Microsoft Office/
Microsoft Office Tools/Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings)

They turned off all additional languages and the pagination problem
disappeared!

We are still going to research the cause and try to detect/fix this
programmatically in our application.

Thanks to all for the help.

Aaron

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Thanks for the feedback. As a result of attempting to troubleshoot this
issue, I ended up with my Normal style contaminated with Chinese (PRC) and
had to launder it. Those languages can be very pervasive!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

I had the users check on any installed or turn-on language support.
They reported back that the user in question had 20+ languages enabled
in her Office Language support. (Start/Programs/Microsoft Office/
Microsoft Office Tools/Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings)

They turned off all additional languages and the pagination problem
disappeared!

We are still going to research the cause and try to detect/fix this
programmatically in our application.

Thanks to all for the help.

Aaron