Word 2008 line numbering broken when saving as pdf

[Eric Tiffany]

There is a bug in Word 2008 when saving line numbered documents to PDF.
This is easy to demonstrate.

Create a new blank document.
Go to Format > Document and set the line numbering option to be continuous.
Type a few paragraphs, and then add a Page Break.

What you will see in Word will look like

1. This is line one
2. This is another line
---- page break ---
3. This is line three

If you save this document as PDF, the PDF file will have two lines labeled
as line 3:

1. This is line one
2. This is another line
3.
---- page break ----
3. This is line three


Yet another reason to use OpenOffice.

 

[John McGhie]

You can work around that one by using the paragraph property "Page Break
Before" instead of a page break. Or using the paragraph property "Keep With
Next" to force Word not to put a page break where you don't want it.

In Word, a page break is actually a character that is contained within the
following paragraph. If that paragraph has numbering, so will the page
break.

But by achieving the page throw with the paragraph properties, you do not
place a "character" in the paragraph, so there is nothing to number.

You may wish to use Help>Send feedback to send your bug in to Microsoft. I
don't think they have that one in the database yet. And if they don't it
will never be fixed

Cheers

There is a bug in Word 2008 when saving line numbered documents to PDF.
This is easy to demonstrate.

Create a new blank document.
Go to Format > Document and set the line numbering option to be continuous.
Type a few paragraphs, and then add a Page Break.

What you will see in Word will look like

1. This is line one
2. This is another line
---- page break ---
3. This is line three

If you save this document as PDF, the PDF file will have two lines labeled
as line 3:

1. This is line one
2. This is another line
3.
---- page break ----
3. This is line three


Yet another reason to use OpenOffice.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Eric Tiffany]

You can work around that one by using the paragraph property "Page Break
Before" instead of a page break. Or using the paragraph property "Keep With
Next" to force Word not to put a page break where you don't want it.

In Word, a page break is actually a character that is contained within the
following paragraph. If that paragraph has numbering, so will the page
break.

Yes, the whole design of the data representation in Word is so
counterintuitive that it defies belief.

But by achieving the page throw with the paragraph properties, you do not
place a "character" in the paragraph, so there is nothing to number.

You may wish to use Help>Send feedback to send your bug in to Microsoft. I
don't think they have that one in the database yet. And if they don't it
will never be fixed

Already done, but I'm not holding my breath.

We are already migrating all of our new document work to OpenOffice, so I
that to complete the document that led to this report. A much more
satisfying and reliable experience. OpenOffice gives you so much more
control over formatting (e.g., the position of the line numbers can be
specified), the PDF generation is much more sophisticated, and it doesn't
crash.

ET

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Eric:

Yes, the whole design of the data representation in Word is so
counterintuitive that it defies belief.

The data is represented internally in XML, but the user never sees that.
The internal representation was designed to be efficiently machine-readable,
it's not designed for human beings to read. Software does not find it
counterintuitive, but then, computers don't have intuition. So I am
struggling to understand what you meant??

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Eric Tiffany]

Hi Eric:



The data is represented internally in XML, but the user never sees that.
The internal representation was designed to be efficiently machine-readable,
it's not designed for human beings to read. Software does not find it
counterintuitive, but then, computers don't have intuition. So I am
struggling to understand what you meant??

If the data were represented internally so that the user never sees it, then
it wouldn't be possible to discover that a page-break is actually
represented as a character in the following paragraph. Unfortunately, that
seems to be the way it is, hence my statement. The whole design is really a
house of cards. And anyone with a reputable CS degree would see that.

You microsoft apologists have obviously never seen anything resembling good
software design, or a robust representation. For example: Emacs. Despite
being 30 years old, it still has a much cleaner way of representing the
essentials of a visual editor. Not that Emacs is the gold standard of
software design, but it beats the crap out of Word.

And, btw, using XML as an internal data representation, if true, would mean
that the M$ software people are really just buzzword fanboys.

 

[John McGhie]

I left this for a few days, just in case you managed to finish "The Complete
Idiot's Guide to Computing" and understand enough of it to correct your
post.

You didn't.

If the data were represented internally so that the user never sees it, then
it wouldn't be possible to discover that a page-break is actually
represented as a character in the following paragraph. Unfortunately, that
seems to be the way it is, hence my statement. The whole design is really a
house of cards. And anyone with a reputable CS degree would see that.

You microsoft apologists have obviously never seen anything resembling good
software design, or a robust representation. For example: Emacs. Despite
being 30 years old, it still has a much cleaner way of representing the
essentials of a visual editor. Not that Emacs is the gold standard of
software design, but it beats the crap out of Word.

And, btw, using XML as an internal data representation, if true, would mean
that the M$ software people are really just buzzword fanboys.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]