Keeping Formatting When Deleting a Section Break?
Stiteler@discussions.microsoft.com Kate Stiteler
really made it less user friendly.
I use a lot of Section Breaks when drafting reports. Generally I have page 1
with one header and footer, which I end with a continuous section break,
followed by subsequent pages with no header and page number footers. I then
will use a page section break, and start the process again with a different
header.
Well, I now find that when I delete a continuous section break to insert it
elsewhere, the page section break above it is ALSO deleted, and then
impossible to put back in. This annoying fluke is the bane of my existence.
Any help?
Suzanne S. Barnhill
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WorkWithSections.htm
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"Kate Stiteler" <Kate Stit...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4D88F19B-9AA5-4B66...@microsoft.com...
S.@discussions.microsoft.com Ken S.
hasn't changed" is well...very, very stupid indeed. The obvious response to
a customer using one's product is to give them clear and concises
instructions on how to solve their problem. But Microsoft failed to
understand this and instead simply indicated that the behavior of Word 2003
has not changed! Daaa! How 'bout providing a an answer to actual help the
person. Here I am with the same problem: I can't figure out how to delete a
section but still keep the format of the "preceding" section. There is no
help or instructions rendered by Microsoft in this regard. That reallly
sucks!! And so does Suzanne's response!
Suzanne S. Barnhill
And note that AFAIK you have received no "response by Microsoft," certainly
not from me; I do not work for Microsoft.
My comment that the behavior of section breaks has not changed in Word 2003
was in response to your complaint that "I hate Microsoft Word 2003. It seems
like they have really made it less user friendly." Many things may have
changed or become less user-friendly in Word 2003, but the behavior of
section breaks is not one of them.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
"Ken S." <Ken S.@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1313F689-3EB8-428F...@microsoft.com...
H@discussions.microsoft.com Steve H
Did you read the e-mails posted here? Do you realize that there were two
separate posters (Kate Stiteler and Ken S.) and not one?
I understand that you are a Word MVP and do not work for Microsoft. And for
what it’s worth, my thanks go to you and other “volunteers” for the time you
devote to trying to explain Microsoft’s flawed products. But, to claim that
your post is not representative of Microsoft is disingenuous at best. I
linked to this thread on Microsoft’s website by clicking a link in the Help
program for Microsoft Word. So although you may not be a Microsoft employee,
Microsoft is definitely using you to try to defend and explain their poor
product. Why can’t Microsoft themselves respond to this question about their
own product? Why do they need to rely on non-employees to explain their
product? Regarding Ken S.’s post, regardless of your status with respect to
Microsoft, this thread is a “response by Microsoft” and a poor one at that.
I had a similar question as Ken S. about the major annoyance of deleting a
section break and losing all of the formatting of the section that I am
keeping. I read the article that you linked to, but I did not find it to be
very helpful. For one thing, the article did not specifically address Ken's
(and my) question about deleting a section break without losing the section
formatting that precedes that break. Basically, the take-home message is
that there is no solution for this problem other than formatting the second
section to exactly match the first section before deleting the section break.
Regardless of your (and other MVP’s) good intentions, the fact remains that
Word is a flawed product and this section break nonsense makes no sense at
all. In most cultures where Word and other Microsoft products are sold,
people write from beginning to end. We write a section, format it, create a
section break, and then repeat. Why on earth should we lose the formatting
for the first section when we delete the section break? A section break is
created when we want a new section, but why is that section break for the new
section suddenly imbued with the properties and formatting of the preceding
section? That makes no sense. Look at it this way – if I have a one-section
document with no section breaks, I can apply formatting to that section,
right? So why does everything change and all of the formatting for that
section is suddenly applied to a section break that I happen to insert at the
end of that section?
One more complaint and then my rant will be over: I tried to reply to this
thread inside the Word Help window, but it didn’t work (natch). I had to go
online with my favorite browser (Opera, obviously not IE) to find this thread
so that I could reply.
Suzanne S. Barnhill
how to preserve section formatting when deleting material at the end of a
document. Since the mvps.org server is currently down, I can't point you to
the specific section, but it is toward the end.
The article explains the way section formatting works. This understanding is
basic to working with sections. When you have only a single section, the
section formatting is held in the final paragraph mark. When you insert a
section break, it holds the formatting for the previous section, and the
final paragraph mark holds the formatting for the final section. If you want
to delete the section break (and the material following it), you must copy
its formatting to the last section first.
Microsoft does provide paid support for users. Free support is provided
through these NGs. I don't feel any need to support a "poor product." It is
a poor workman who blames his tools; you view Word as a "poor product"
because you are unwilling to learn how to use it.
You will also find, it you want to use these NGs regularly, that an NNTP
newsreader such as Outlook Express makes this far easier; see
http://www.gmayor.com/MSNews.htm
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
"Steve H" <Steve H...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C8B89AD2-4C3D-452E...@microsoft.com...
> section? That makes no sense. Look at it this way - if I have a
Steve H
My question was this: is there a way to delete a section break and keep the
formatting in the preceding section without having the formatting
automatically changed to match the second, deleted section? Based on my own
experience, the only way I knew how to do it was to re-format the section
after deleting the page break.
I read through the entire linked document again. While you are correct that
the article does address this question, it offers no solution other than what
I have already figured out. Basically, the answer is that there is no way to
delete a section break without having the formatting of the second section
replace the formatting of the first section.
Now, the article did offer some tricks or (not so very short) shortcuts,
like copying the section break to the end of the next section prior to
deleting the section break. But that is just a trick, as you are still left
with an unwanted section break. If you then try to delete that unwanted
section break, the formatting change happens anyway. The article offered
another solution, in which you change the formatting of the second section to
match the formatting of the first section before you delete the section
break. But you still have to reformat, right? Regardless of when you do it,
the bottom line is that if you want to delete a section break between two
sections with different formats, you are going to have to reformat something.
Personally, I was hoping that there was some way to change the default
settings so that when deleting a page break, the preceding format is
maintained, which seems a lot more logical to me. However, there is nothing
in that article or in what you have written that provides any answer to the
question other than to say “that’s just the way it is” while offering some
unsatisfactory shortcuts.
I will acknowledge that the article you linked to did provide an explanation
about how sections work in Word; I learned a lot and I am grateful. But, at
the same time, the article left me even more bewildered about how illogical
this “design” is. I don’t think it makes me a “poor workman” to offer
criticism, but if you think it does, then so be it. Microsoft’s products
like Office and Internet Explorer are popular because of Windows bundling and
Microsoft’s business practices. Word is the “default” word processing
program, and it has very little to do with the quality of the program itself.
I can think of several better-designed word processing programs and I would
use those tools if I could.
Suzanne S. Barnhill
the formatting of the next-to-last section into the last section before
deleting the break. If it's just a matter of margins and other settings in
Page Setup, then this is done quite easily:
1. Place the insertion point in the next-to-last section.
2. Open Page Setup. Without making any changes, click OK.
3. Now move the insertion point to the last section and press F4. This will
copy the Page Setup settings you just made in the previous section.
For an example of how this works, see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/DetachEnvelope.htm.
If there are headers and footers involved, you'll need to unlink the last
section so that it inherits the headers/footers from the previous section.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
"Steve H" <Ste...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FCD3D81F-07A2-4950...@microsoft.com...
Steve H
Steve
espertinha
Just one important remark: I had two sections, where the first one had
different header/footer for the first page. In this case, I had to insert a
manual page break in the Section 2 before copying the settings from Section 1.
opjeshke
it is automatically creating a section brake at the formated text and the
next page has a different section and page number. I tried to link it to the
previous page but it doesn't work, tried to format the page number at the
"continue numbering", doesn't work even like that and I really need the page
to be continuous in the whole document. I've worked before with columned text
and I didn't have this kind of problem... please help me, it's driving me mad
Suzanne S. Barnhill
numbering is restarting in the multi-column section. Place the insertion
point there and then go to Format Page Number and select "Continue from
previous section."
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
"opjeshke" <opje...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4FD8D474-BA2B-4D6F...@microsoft.com...
TrevDev
other MVPs do in supporting the Microsoft user community, I must reprove you
for your words, "a poor workman...blames his tools; you view Word as a poor
I have been a user of Word since version 2 and probably know as much about
it as you do. I am a great fan of many of its features, but Microsoft's
decision about how to handle section breaks and their deletion is simply
wrong. It is (a) counter-intuitive, and (b) puts the user to a great deal of
work to right the wrong, in what is supposed to be and generally is a
productivity tool! It doesn't matter whether the work-around is documented or
not - it shouldn't be needed at all.
Conceptually, it would not be difficult for Microsoft to add an object to
the Word object model, as a property of the Document object. Let's call the
new object "SectionsInSequence". It would keep track of section formatting in
the order that users intuitively expect it to be tracked, and when a section
was deleted would re-apply the formatting of the preceding section, not the
one that had gone. That is, the SectionsInSequence object would automatically
apply the workaround instead of leaving it to the user.
Best regards.
D.@discussions.microsoft.com Kent D.
Thank you for your help, as I have a similar problem. Please don't take my
comments as a personal attack, but I hope that you can gain perspective from
them. I also want to comment that I'm sure it is difficult to deal with
people who are frustrated by not being able to do the things that they are
trying to do because they haven't learned the right way to accomplish them.
But Microsoft sells Office as a 'Productivity Tool', aims it at the business
market and charges PREMIUM prices for their products. Microsoft has been
marketing Office Products as simple to use, so that any one can pick them up
and get things done. Most of the people who are now using Microsoft Office
products don't have college courses on these specific products. I am a
draftsperson, who has more computer experience than most. I have taken some
introductory courses on Microsoft Office products, enough to know that there
are some powerful tools available to format documents, but so long ago that I
can't remember specifics. For Microsoft to have such counter intuitive
formatting in a PREMIUM product that is marketed as an easy to use,
'Productivity Tool', is un-defendable. It is just another indication of
Microsoft's arrogance.
I find it sad that almost all of the documents that I open either from our
office or sent to us from customers or suppliers are completely unformatted.
Most users still use the ‘Return Key’ to end lines and ‘Space Bar’ to indent.
When I talk to some of the people who have generated these documents, it’s
not that they don’t know that they can do it better, it’s that it takes too
much time and is too hard to correct. I think that much of the reason is that
to really format a document correctly is still overly complicated and silly
‘counter intuitive’ issues like page formatting at the end of a section is
enough to take most user’s over the edge.
If you work with ‘Word’ in depth everyday you can probably make it dance,
but Microsoft is selling this to ordinary people who are just trying to get
something done. In my case, I have a couple of weeks to create a Drafting
Standards Document. I don’t really have time to take a three or four day
course to brush up on how to make MS Word’s formatting work. If Microsoft
want’s to make the big bucks for their ‘Productivity Tools’ they should be
addressing “confusing, but it’s “by design”.” type issues to make them not
confusing.
Regards,
Kent
Virginia
- Place you cursor after the last word before the section break.
- Add a carriage return, to get the section break to show-up on another line.
- Move the cursor to the far left of the document until it changes -
selecting the entire line.
- Hit the delete key.
I hope this helps!
Suzanne S. Barnhill
know how to retain formatting when deleting a section break, which wasn't
possible in that case because a multi-column section was involved.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
"Virginia" <Virg...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:659D909A-6D66-4177...@microsoft.com...
Max
ever encountered. I've been using Word for over 20 years, have an IQ well
over 150, and I still cannot figure out how to delete Section 2 from a
two-section document without losing my formatting.
Microsoft, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
--
Max
Stefan Blom
directly to Microsoft (although I do understand the need to vent at times).
Also, I'd like to point out, as Suzanne did in her reply, that everything
you need to know about sections is explained at
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/WorkWithSections.htm.
--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP
"Max" <M...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1460ED63-56A0-475B...@microsoft.com...
David
Thanks
Suzanne S. Barnhill
I'm glad you found it helpful.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
"David" <Da...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:684B62C0-0923-471B...@microsoft.com...
Warrington@discussions.microsoft.com Chris Warrington
Finally an easy workaround to the llogical behaviour of Word. As somebody who
uses Word everyday most parts of the application I love, but I have always
had problems deleting sections in my Word documents because invariably the
last thing that I want is for the first part of my document to take on the
page layout of a following section that I didn't want to keep anyway.
Thanks for the help.
Chris