How can I insert a section break within a column?

[Lhynard]

I have a rather complicated problem that I will try to carefully explain below.

I am writing an epic poem. (Yes, an epic poem.) The formatting I want is as
follows:

I want every page to have two columns.

My poem has cantos (like chapters) and sections (within those cantos).

The poem has 4 line stanzas, except that every section ends with a doublet
(2-line stanza.

I am using line numbering for every fourth line, so that the last line of
every stanza has a line number by it. However, since the end of a section has
a couplet instead of a quartet, a section messes this up so that the line
number now shows in the middle of every stanza.

I would rather have the line numbering COUNT the two lines of the couplet
but not display the number till the end of the next quartet.

Example:
How it looks now:

Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah
4 Blah blah blah

Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah

****

Blah blah blah
8 Blah blah Blah
Blah blah blah
Blah blah Blah

How I want it to look:

How it looks now:

Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah
4 Blah blah blah

Blah blah blah
Blah blah blah

****

Blah blah blah
Blah blah Blah
Blah blah blah
10 Blah blah Blah

I thought one way I could make this work would be to add a continuous
section break. Then I could "reset" the line numbering with each section and
begin the numbering of the second section manually so that it continues from
the previous section.

However, when I added the continuous section break, it split my columns.
That is, it drew an invisible line horizontally across the page. The first
section wrapped to the second column when it reached this line. The second
section started on the left column below this line and wrapped to the second
column below this line. I don't want the column formatting to behave any
differently than if there were no section break.

Example:

# = lines
* = section break

What I want it to do:

1 10
2
3 11
4 12
13
5 14
6
15
* 16
17
7 18
8
9

What it does instead:

1
2 5
3 6
4
*

7 13
8 14
9
10 15
16
11 17
12 18

Is there any way to solve my problem?

Thanks for reading through this long and complicated question.

 

[Jay Freedman]

There is no way to place any kind of section break within a column in
the way you want. All of the section being ended will be placed on the
part of the page above the break, and there is no way to alter that.

The solution, if you call it that, is to remove the section breaks and
the automatic line numbering, replacing it with a text box or frame
placed in the margin and containing a fixed series of numbers. This is
the way numbering is done in the legal pleading template that comes
with Word. In that case, the numbers are the same on each page, so the
text box is anchored in the heading to make it repeat. It appears that
you'll need different numbers on each page, and you'll need separate
boxes for the two columns, so they'll have to be anchored in the first
paragraph of each column instead.

Because the content and location of each text box will depend on how
the lines fit on the pages, the insertion of the numbers will have to
wait until the editing and formatting of the whole document is
complete, or risk having to make adjustments over and over.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
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[Lhynard]

Thank you very much for your quick and detailed reply.

Yeah, I think the alternative you propose will be more work than it is worth.

I could also just go with hitting a tab at the end of my stanzas and
manually typing a number, which is what I used to do, but once I figured out
how to get line numbering to work, it looked a lot nicer in the left margin
and saves a ton of time if I decide to insert lines at later dates.

Oh well; leave it to me to find things that Word simply cannot do.

Is there a place here to leave suggestions for future editions of Word?


One other quick question:
Is it possible to have line numbering count by different amounts for
different parts of the text without using section breaks? Because that would
solve my problem also.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Sorry to keep being a wet blanket, but line numbering is a section
property (that is, its settings are stored in the section break at the
end of the section, and it applies to the entire section). Other
section properties include margins, orientation, headers and footers.
To change the line numbering settings at any point, you do need a
section break.