Your best bet is to not use page breaks. I suspect you are
encountering a common issue in printing. Each printer doesn't print
identically to the other and they paginate a document differently due
to line height, printable area, etc.
So even if you painstakingly add your page breaks, if you switch to
another printer, send the document to someone else with a different
printer, or if you change your page margins, line spacing, etc then
you'll likely find the pagination is off once again.
In this case, if the document appears correctly in Print Preview but
prints differently then I suspect the problem is due to using the
incorrect printer driver. For example you may have an HP5 but are
using an HP3 printer driver.
If you are trying to keep text and paragraphs together on a page then
you should utilize the pagination options found under
Format/Paragraph/Line and Page Breaks instead of manual page breaks.
The "Keep with next" option will keep a paragraph on the same page as
the following paragraph. The "Keep lines together" option will keep an
entire paragraph the same page.
Ideally you incorporate these options in document styles so the
pagination options will be applied as your text is formatted.
First remove manual page breaks using Find & Replace. Go to
Edit/Replace and in the Find text box type: ^m and leave the Replace
with blank. Select "Replace All" and the manual page breaks will be
deleted.
Then, if you didn't use Styles, work through the document and start
with the "Keep with next" pagination option:
- Place your cursor in the paragraph (no need to select the entire
paragraph)
- Go to Format/Paragraph/Line and Page Breaks
- Turn on "Keep with next"
- Place your cursor in the next paragraph needing the format and press
F4 to repeat the format
- Continue the Repeat command (F4) as needed.
The do the same using the "Keep lines together" option if you have
paragraphs you would like to keep together on the same page.
This may sound like several steps but you can accomplish this in a few
minutes. Believe me, I've been where you are and manual page breaks in
a long document can be *very* frustrating. All you have to do is add
one small word and off you go deleting and reinserting manual page
breaks. Once I learned how to use the pagination options I've never
encountered the same frustration again!
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
Word FAQ:
http://mvps.org/word
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http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site:
http://mvps.org/