Word 2008 - Page breaks - how to remove?

[The NewGuy]

So I find Draft mode is the only display mode that works for me. Web
layout wouldn't be bad but the page down/up thing is messed up so when I
go down 1 page it goes down 1/2 a page, then a little more: its a total
mess. But Draft is great. The only issue so far is these irritating
horizontal blue lines. Apparently they are called Page Breaks. Why they
are there when I didn't put them there is odd. Why Microsoft doesn't
allow for their removal seems a little ludicrous. Has anyone had any
luck in banishing these stupid (at least for some of us) things that are
just a constant irritation in our work? I used the Show/Hide button but
that doesn't seem to help. Obviously these are not manual Page Breaks -
duh.... I think I would have remembered had I put them there. But to
get rid of them would be wonderful. Right now I'm using Textedit for
some stuff (no Page Breaks with Textedit) but it just doesn't have the
power of Word.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Well, if you type more than a page worth of text, there will have to be
a page break, so you can't actually *remove* them. Word is trying to be
helpful by showing you roughly where they will be. Word 2004 (and Word
98, 2001, X) did this with dotted black lines--I guess you never noticed
them. (I have to say, I've been reading this board for years and never
seen this complaint, IIRC, though I've seen a complaint that they
*don't* show up.)

Anyhow, try Word | Preferences | General and UNcheck "background
repagination." That might make them show up less frequently--but if you
force Word to calculate page breaks either by using Word Count, or going
into Print Layout or Print Preview, the blue lines will appear and not
go away.

You can ask MS for an option to turn them off entirely or make them less
noticeable by using Help | Send Feedback in Word. It would make sense if
there were an option for them under "nonprinting characters" in the View
prefs. Or I'm hoping at some point they will tone down that bright blue
used for all the nonprinting characters.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello -

In addition to Daiya's information...

Right now I'm using Textedit for
some stuff (no Page Breaks with Textedit) but it just doesn't have the
power of Word.

What you're witnessing is one of the fundamental differences between a *text
editor* and a *word processor*

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[The NewGuy]

Hello -

In addition to Daiya's information...



What you're witnessing is one of the fundamental differences between a *text
editor* and a *word processor*

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Guess I'll float between both for a while. The more a learn Textedit,
the better it gets of course. I'm a very basic document user/creator so
I'm not using almost all of Word's features.

 

[CyberTaz]

Guess I'll float between both for a while. The more a learn Textedit,
the better it gets of course. I'm a very basic document user/creator so
I'm not using almost all of Word's features.

If your needs are "almost" basic enough to be "almost" met by TextEdit you
may want to try TextWrangler. It has additional features & it's free:

http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

If your needs are "almost" basic enough to be "almost" met by TextEdit you
may want to try TextWrangler. It has additional features & it's free:

http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

I haven't looked at TW for a while--but it strikes me as a plain text
editor, good for writing code, not producing formatted documents. While
TextEdit's default presentation is as a Rich Text editor with simple
formatting.

If you use the formatting features of TextEdit, Bean may be a nice step
up (free):
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

Daiya