page break interferes with header location

Y

Yve Ke

i have been making a procedures manual and I have noticed that when i put in
a hard page break (because i don't want a table to split acorss a page) a
little black box stays on the previous page and it interferes with the
location of the first line of text on the new page. I am getting uneven tops
of pages depending on whether there is a page break on the page before. It
is slight but it is annoying.
Can anyone help?
Yve
 
B

BruceM

Paragraph formatting could help you. Format a paragraph in the top row of
the table to Page Break Before (or you could use Keep With Next, depending
on the specifics of your situation). I have had success formatting any
paragraph in the top row (or adding Page Break Before to a style that I use
only in the top row), but I have read postings from people who say to format
all of the paragraphs in the top row. In any case, I usually have better
results when I can avoid the manual page break.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

If you insert a manual page break, you (a) split the table (which prevents
any heading rows from repeating) and (b) inserts an empty paragraph above
the table on the second page. To avoid both results, instead select the row
you want to be at the top of the second page and format it as "Page break
before" (Line and Page Breaks tab of Format | Paragraph). Unless you're
absolutely positive you always want a page break just there, it's better to
keep rows together using "Keep with next" formatting. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/ControlPgBrksInTables.htm
 
Y

Yve Ke

Thank you that was very helpful. I have removed all manual pagebreaks and
changed the format like you said. BUT i still notice that when i flick from
odd to even header that my text on odd butts right up to the header area and
my text on even doesn't. There doesn't seem to be a lurking enter. What i do
notice though is that my scroll box in the scroll bar jumps down a little
when I switch between odd and even. SO there is still uneven page tops across
my manual. I am now starting to think it maybe a header and footer thing.
I've checked my para spacing after and that is identical.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

If you're using different odd and even headers, there's a good chance you
copy/pasted text from one to the other. This is another pitfall. No matter
how carefully you select all but the paragraph mark when copying and select
the existing paragraph mark when pasting, Word will still always paste an
extra paragraph mark, giving you an extra, empty paragraph. That might be
what's causing your problem. It is, of course, much easier to troubleshoot
such issues if you have nonprinting characters displayed, and easier still
if you have text boundaries displayed.
 
Y

Yve Ke

But I don't see any extra paragraph mark in there. I think there is something
siginificant in the fact that the scroll box bounces down a bit even as the
cursor is at the same location for the odd and even header. What does the
little black signify and how do you show text boundaries?
 
Y

Yve Ke

Hi Suzanne
Thanks again for your help!
I have established that it has something to do with the text boundary. One
is wider than the other. But the font, the para before and after, the size of
text are all the same. How is this text boundary established? The odd page
header has the grey dotted line at the end of the header space and the even
page footer has the grey dotted line through the header space.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I'm having trouble visualizing what you're talking about (not sure what's
wider, what dotted line you're talking about, etc.). Can you send me the
document to look at?
 
Y

Yve Ke

I have sent a screen dump of what I am talking about - the grey dotted line
is the text boundaries. I have ended up fixing my problem by deleting the
odd and even pages and re-putting them in BUT would still like to know about
these text boundaries and why they were different when the text looked the
same in font, size and para before and after. How do you manipulate them?
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I'm afraid I can tell anything from screen shots; I need the actual
document.
 
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