Deleting Section Break Modifies preceeding headers

[RjS, CISSP, CISA]

Hi - I have a number of documents that are divided into sections with the
Section Break Marker. Each section then has its own header and footer and
most of the information in each header consists of a number of bookmark
cross-referrences into that section. The problem that I am encountering,
which appears as a solid bug to me, is that if I delete a following section
(by removing the section break and all subsequest text) then all of the
header information of the preceeding section is changed to point to the
bookmarks in the section I just deleted. Then, when the book is printed all
of those references break. Worse - the newly changes cross-references are
sticky... i.e. after editing them back to a correct cross reference when the
document is saved they revert back to the incorrect cross reference to the
now non-existant section.

Is there any advise or workarounds.

Much Appreciated

 

[Stefan Blom]

Each section break stores the formatting of the preceding section (and the
final paragraph mark of a document contains a hidden section break). So when
you delete a section break, you are deleting the headers and footers (as
well as other settings) of the preceding pages. See
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/WorkWithSections.htm.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
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[RjS, CISSP, CISA]

Thanks Stefan - I was hoping you would pick up this thread. I had read many
of the previous solutions to a problem simular to mine, but they all called
for making the headers and footers "Same as Previous" which wouldnt apply in
my case. Your document "Working with Sections" does have the answer: "make
sure that the section formatting of the final section is identical to that of
the preceding one."

However, with regards to copying the header and footer formatting
information I could not get the instructions that followed the above quote to
work. Going to FILE then PAGE SETTINGS and pressing RETURN and then going to
the last section and pressing F4 did not, in my case, copy the header and
footer formatting to the last section. Have I missunderstood something in
these instructions?

I did accomplish the copy the header/footer formatting to the current last
page by going into the last section header I wanted to preserve, pressing
Control-A then Control-C and then going to the header of the current last
section and pressing Control-A then Control-V. Same thing for the footers.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The Enter, then F4 solution would save the "settings" (top and bottom
margins, header and footer margins, and so on) but not any content. There
are also some section properties (such as columns) that can't be replicated
this way.

 

[Stefan Blom]

But note that you can duplicate the settings for columns separately, by
using the *Columns* dialog box.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Of course. You can replicate any of the section formatting directly, but the
simple Enter, F4 solution in Page Setup doesn't work for these other
settings, as discussed in the private.mvp.word NG recently.

 

[Stefan Blom]

I do see the point you are making (and it is an important one). I just
wanted to clarify what *can* be done, for anyone following this thread.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message