Turning New Page Section Breaks Into Continuous Not Working

[Elessvie]

Hello, folks -- Word 2007. Never had a problem with this before. Have a
document with 14 section breaks--all Section Starts in page layout have been
set to New Page. Now I would like to change all section breaks to
Continuous. I select entire document, go into Page Layout and change the
Section Start to Continuous. Out in the document, with marks turned on, all
the section breaks are labeled as Continuous, as expected, but they are still
acting like New Page section breaks. I even added a Continuous section break
at the very end of the document, but still all the breaks are acting like New
Page breaks.

Can anyone please tell me what am I doing wrong? Or point me to an
explanation?

I have read the MVP site's "Working With Sections" (which has been really
helpful with controlling section formatting!), but can't find a solution to
this particular problem.

Many thank yous for any help you could give.

-Lynne

 

[Lene Fredborg]

The problem could be that the first paragraph after each section break is set
to "Page break before†(Paragraph dialog box > Line and Page Breaks Tab).

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word

 

[Elessvie]

Hi, Lene. Thanks for your response. No, no direct formatting at all in this
document, and the style that's applied to the heading of each section title
(after the Continuous section break) does not have Page Break Before checked
or even Keep With Next.

Oh--and I also put a Continuous section break right at the START of the
document, because I know that for section breaks, they will affect the
FOLLOWING section.

Could there be anything else? I started this document from scratch
(Ctrl-n), paste-specialed the text into it, and then applied styles. I am
really stumped.

 

[Lene Fredborg]

I found the following thread about the same problem (not Word 2007) - and as
you will see, the problem in that case was related to the presence of
footnotes
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...4/9a553375d9884188?q=section+break+acts+wrong

I just made a small test in Word 2007 and found that the next (continuous)
section started on a new page if I had a footnote in the preceding section.
Do you have any footnotes in your document?

Also, you are welcome to mail the document to me (lf (at) thedoctools.com)
and I will have a look. However, I may not be able to find out what is going
on.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word

 

[gr8auntieokie]

I'd suggest checking to make sure your document is compatible with your
version of Word. I know you said you typed the document from scratch but it
never hurts to check the compatibility, since in most cases when you're
having problems with sections, headers and footers, footnotes, and page
numbers, making sure your document is compatible with your version of Word is
usually the kicker. Pizza Button (Microsoft Office button in the upper left
corner of the Word window), Word Options, Advanced, scroll all the way down
to the bottom of the window to where it says, "Lay out this document as if
in:" and make sure your version of Word appears in the window. If that's not
your version of Word, click on the dropdown arrow and select your version of
Word. Then click OK. Nine times out of ten, your problem will disappear as
soon as you click the OK button.

Cyndie Browning
Software Support Specialist
GableGotwals
Tulsa, OK

 

[djb]

Hello - I work with Elessvie. In another post about this same problem, I
found this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=292074

Scroll down to “Resolutionâ€, where it says (for Word 2007):

"1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.
2. In the left pane, click Advanced.
In the right pane, expand Layout Options under Compatibility, click to
select the Lay out footnotes the way Word 6.x/95/97 does check box, and then
click OK."

I tried it on the same doc Elessvie wrote about. Now the numbered heading
at the beginning of each new section stays on the same page as the end of the
previous section (despite being formatted as Keep With Next), but as soon as
there's a paragraph with a footnote, it gets forced onto a new page, even
when there's plenty of room on the old page to accommodate the paragraph and
its footnote.

Then I tried making sure there was no Widow/Orphan Control, Keep Lines
Together, Keep With Next, and Page Break Before formatting in the entire doc,
including footnotes, and it still forced the first footnote of each section
to a new page.

- djb

 

[Lene Fredborg]

In the thread to which I linked in a previous post, the solution with turning
on the compatibility option “Lay out footnotes like Word 6.x/95/97†was also
mentioned.

However, according to Suzanne Barnhill’s comment about the result of turning
on this option (QUOTE: …Lay out footnotes like Word 6.x/95/97 means "screw up
footnotes and put them quite possibly on a different page from their
references the way older versions did,"…), turning on the compatibility
option may solve one problem but result in other and maybe worse problems
instead… (I rarely work with footnotes and I have no experience with this
specific compatibility option).

I hope you will find an acceptable solution to the problem.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word

 

[djb]

(QUOTE: …Lay out footnotes like Word 6.x/95/97 means "screw up

footnotes and put them quite possibly on a different page from their
references the way older versions did,"…),

Hahaha!

The "acceptable (so far as we know) solution" was to give up trying to make
the footnotes print on the same page. All's well that ends well, I guess.

djb

 

[gr8auntieokie]

The article linked to your first reply mentioned the use of section breaks to
change the text from a single column to multiple columns, and back. If you're
using section breaks in your document because you're inserting multiple
columns in your document, I would suggest the use of tables instead of
columns to separate pieces of your text across the page (like side-by-side
signature blocks, etc.). In our office, we NEVER use columns but always
recommend to our users that they create their tab-separated text inside a
table instead. Perhaps if you did that in your document, you would then
eliminate the need for section breaks altogether, thereby fixing the problem
that causes your footnotes and headings to jump to the next page(s).

Also, I still heartily recommend that you change the compatibility of any
document you're working on to match whatever version of Word you're using,
_without_exception_. In my experience, malfunctioning footnotes are almost
always caused because the document you're working on is not compatible with
the version of Word that's on your computer. 99 times out of a 100, changing
the compatibility setting to match your version of Word will _automatically_
fix whatever footnote problems you're having, that is, as soon as you click
OK, the problem rights itself.

Cyndie Browning
Software Support Specialist
GableGotwals
Tulsa, OK

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This thread caused me to reread the KB article in question (“Section break
causes an unexpected page break in Word†at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=292074), as I hadn't remembered that the
combination of Continuous breaks and footnotes would trigger this behavior
in a situation that did not involve a change in the number of columns
(though that is certainly the most common reason for having Continuous
breaks). As the article states, "The new page is created to prevent
footnotes (or endnotes) from two different sections of the document from
being displayed on the same page." The only explanation I can think of for
this is that if footnote numbering is restarted in each section, then two
footnotes with the same number might occur on the same page.

In the case of changes in the number of columns, then there is a much more
practical reason: footnotes to columnar sections are placed at the bottom of
the relevant column. There is a workaround for this situation at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/FtnoteSpanColumns.htm


--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org