Illogical behavior of "Keep with next" over page breaks

Suzanne S. Barnhill

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Jul 17, 2004, 5:08:01 PM7/17/04

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This is a suggestion for Microsoft posted through the Office Community Web portal. If you believe this suggestion has merit, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.word.pagelayout&lang=en&cr=US and vote for it.

Users with an understanding of Word's Line and Page Break options would expect the following behavior using "Keep with next":

1. When a paragraph has KWN formatting applied, it will stay with the following paragraph if that paragraph moves to the next page.

2. If there is room for a portion of the paragraph on the first page, one line (or, if "Widow/orphan control" is enabled, two lines) of the paragraph will move to the next page, leaving the remainder behind.

In fact, (2) is not correct. I have learned that the design spec for this feature is as follows:

"Keep With Next
"This feature prevents a page break between a paragraph and the following
paragraph. This feature can have different results depending on when it
is applied. If Keep with Next is applied and then the following
paragraph is forced to the next page, the entire paragraph formatted
with Keep with Next will follow onto the next page as well. If Keep with
Next is applied to a paragraph that already straddles a page break, it
will continue to straddle that page break and not jump entirely onto the
next page."

In effect, this means that, in enabling "Keep with next," you are also enabling "Keep lines together." If you consider it illogical that an entire paragraph should jump to the next page when there is room for most of it on the preceding page, vote Yes on this suggestion.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Fairhope, AL 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.

Jezebel

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Jul 17, 2004, 7:50:21 PM7/17/04

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You're right that there's a certain illogic to it, but it's horses for
courses. I use KWN only in in situations where I need the related paragraphs
to remain together in their entirety; your point 2 is not what I want or
expect. But then I rarely use KWN with multi-line paragraphs anyway. I use
it a] for heading styles, so that the heading is not separated from the
matter that follows (and I certainly don't want to see a heading straddling
a page break!), and b] for lists, when I want the entire list to remain
together.

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" <sbar...@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:64C58128-C3DB-4BBF...@microsoft.com...

tappies

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Jul 17, 2004, 8:14:01 PM7/17/04

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Yes, but you could turn on *both* KWN and KLT to achieve the combined effect, whereas with the current spec there is no way to acheive the scenario described in point 2.

Jezebel

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Jul 18, 2004, 12:40:20 AM7/18/04

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Unquestionably true, and I agree with Suzanne that it's illogical; but if
she hadn't mentioned that someone posted a question about it I would have
thought it more a theoretical problem than a practical one. I really can't
think of a situation where you'd want to do it. To me 'keep with next' has
always meant 'keep these paragraphs on the same page'.

"tappies" <tap...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
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Suzanne S. Barnhill

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Jul 18, 2004, 10:01:18 AM7/18/04

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There was a long thread about it here or in another NG recently. The user
and I took it offline, and he sent me his document to look at because I
couldn't believe what he was describing was really happening. When I was
able to reproduce it in my own documents, I submitted it as a bug and was
told it was by design. Admittedly, the situation doesn't arise often, but
here is the scenario:

You have (simplest case) a two-page letter that is just long enough to throw
the signature block and any succeeding paragraphs (copy list, enclosure
notice, etc.) onto the second page. You want at least a part of the last
paragraph to be on the second page; otherwise the letter is absurd. But the
last paragraph is quite long; if the whole paragraph goes to page 2, then
page 1 is ridiculously short.

In this situation, it is easy enough to change the bottom margin to make the
paragraph break on its own, or perhaps split a long paragraph into two. But
if this is a long contract, where there is the same requirement that some
portion of the contract be on the page with the signatures, changing the
margin or breaking up paragraphs may not be an option, and a less-than-full
page may be suspect.

My chief objection, though, is that it just isn't logical.

--
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.

"Jezebel" <dwa...@heaven.com.kr> wrote in message
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Klaus Linke

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Jul 19, 2004, 2:39:05 PM7/19/04

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Hi Suzanne,

I guess I have to click on "Was this post helpful to you: Yes" (since I
agree)?

Regards,
Klaus

Suzanne S. Barnhill

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Jul 19, 2004, 4:39:30 PM7/19/04

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Yes. This is going to be fixed in the next version of TICKAW so that the
buttons for suggestions will be more clearly labeled.

--
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.

"Klaus Linke" <in...@fotosatz-kaufmann.de.no.junk> wrote in message
news:%23ff6j%23bbEH...@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

Klaus Linke

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Jul 20, 2004, 5:15:04 PM7/20/04

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Thank you!

(BTW for the curious and the Prince fans: TICKAW is the Office Community Web portal, or "The interface currently known as WebNews)

Klaus