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Thread: Word 2010 page number problems
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2020-03-18, 07:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Word 2010 page number problems
Okay, so I'm an TRYING to put sensible page numbers on my rules documents. I want, very simply, to have the page numbers to be opposites on odd and even pages (to match my mirrored margins).
My document does have different sections (because I have different column widths for stuff like class tables and then the double-column rules underneath.)
I am uisng Word 2010.
The "link to previous section" only works occasionally. Half the time, word just totally ignores the link to previous section (which SHOULD, if I understand it right, make all the section use the same formating, footer/header height etc). Linking it, or unlinkiing it means it does not change the positions of the page number, does not change the footer/header height and generally appears to do nothing. I have no idea why occasionally it works, or why it particualry fails on the even pages nore than the odd pages.
This means I am having to go through the entire document page by frelling page to manually insert the page numbers on about every other page.
Surely this CANNOT be the way Word intends you to perfoma basic function like adding page numbers in? There must be a better way than having to do this. (My google-search has not lcoated anything.)
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2020-03-18, 07:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
I tried it out right now, and I can't seem to replicate your problem. I took a document with multiple sections, I double-clicked a header, checked "different odds & even pages" in the Design tab, then double-clicked an odd header and added page numbers to the right, then double-clicked an even header and added page numbers to the left. No problem. I mean, not like yours: my problem with sections is that one will turn from continuous to page breaking if I perform certain changes.
Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2020-03-19, 02:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
First question: Are all of your sections the same paper size (e.g. Letter, A4) and orientation (e.e. portrait, landscape) as if they are not, you really need 'link to previous section' set off across the 'section break: new page' that splits the sections.
Second question: Have you got 'Different First Page' turned on for any section?
Third question: Have you managed to get different settings for 'Different Odd & Even Pages' for the sections? (Should not be possible, this one should be a document setting.)
OK, once you have ensured all of these are set as you want, things to bear in mind:
A document without different odd & even pages still has even page headers, you just cannot see them. Text from an older version of the document within them is retained and will show up in spell checks.
The previous section header for an even page is the even page section header of the previous section - if it doesn't have an even page you won't inherit from the odd section header, the even header is still there.
Similarly for 1st page headers & footers.
So, my first suggestion is to check all of your inserted page breaks and section breaks to make sure they are the ones you think they are.
Then, add in enough filler space and text to ensure that every section has at least 2 pages (so that you can see all of the different odd and even headers & footers).
Then you can go through checking what links to what and what is/is not inheriting from where.
Good luck!
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2020-03-19, 05:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
The ancestry of the document may go back to Word 95.
But...
...if Word puts a header and footer to every section that doesn't even have a full page (and there would be a lot of those in this document), that might be why it's not doing it properly. (Kind of a weird design decision, if you ask me.)
And that point, though, that's going to be as much or more work to do that as having to manually re-paginate it. Blast.
I take it there really ISN'T a way to set a global header-footer to all sections?
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2020-03-19, 07:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
If nothing else, it should be possible to write a macro to do it when your done messing with layout.
I've always found Word a bit too "fluid", it does things automatically I don't expect and end up fighting with the textflow.
It sounds like it should be possible, but to be honest am more of an Excel hacker so am not sur eon the how, and not entirely certain how legacy might affect the document other than that it probably does in unexpected ways. If running off an older version I hope you are saving in the newest format you can (sometimes older fileformat won't keep stuff).
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2020-03-19, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Section/Page headings are a joy, aren't they?
Try this exciting two-stage process:
1. Control/A to select the entire document; then Insert tab -> Footer -> Remove Footer
You should no longer have any page footers.
2. Control/A to select the entire document; then Insert tab -> Footer -> Edit Footer; Add your footer details.
This should give you the same footer definition throughout the document. It may use the "link to previous", but I'm not sure.Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
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2020-03-19, 12:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
AHA. Yes, and theorhetically, once I do that, I might be able to then use the "different odd/even" to set the page numbers.
(I did, in my defence, try select all to see if that would globally sort the footers, but didn't think to delete them to reset them.)
Edit: MOTHERFRACKER!!!!
Nope, that did NOT work. Even with "select all" it didn't delete all the footers. It seemed to get the ones I'd already fixed, but... Nope. Not the next hundred or so pages...
Well. That sucks.
Looks like I have no alternative but to have to do it manually, then, since it seems like something somewhere (maybe from initially being in Word9597-2003* format) has done something screwy to how it decides the footers.
*That might have started out in Word 95 format, I suppose...Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2020-03-19 at 12:13 PM.
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2020-03-19, 01:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Errr... I honestly have no understanding of how footers are supposed to work, but have you considered the reverse? Start a new document with these odd/even footers, and paste the text of your document into it?
That might clear the accumulated debris of over 20 years of backwards compatibility legacy code in the doc.
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2020-03-20, 08:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Nope, just tried, didn't help (and even set back the footers I had fixed, which is why I used "copy" and not "cut...!")
(It is something I have attempted to use before, but someitmes doing that fracks the table of contents up, though this time, that surivived, so, there was at least that...)
Edirt: W£ell, it's done now, all 155 pages re-sorted; now I lieklly just have to do it on a load of other documents as well, though I suspect the majority of them won't have nearly so many sections at least.Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2020-03-20 at 08:47 AM.
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2020-03-23, 03:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-03-23, 07:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Congratulations - it's a lot of work but can be worth it.
As for the other documents, you might be able to get away with importing the styles from the fixed document to them - unlikely but it can work.
As for why copy + paste into clean document did not work, you pretty much have to select "Use destination formatting" and then reformat everything...
Anyway well done for persevering, I see far too many issued documents (form both big companies and government departments) where any decent editor would have bounced it as "unfit".
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2020-03-23, 07:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Likely would have taken longer to learn how to do that than to have done it, I think.
(The other documents did not, in fact, have many sections, especially relieving in the case of the spells one, which currently runs to, like 230 pages...)
THAT would have entailed a horrifying amount of work, considering the tons and tons and tons of formating (talk about cutting your nose of to spite your face); it's not even like I would be able to cheat a good chunk like with the spells, where I can find/replace when I'm done to bold all the relevant doofers.
Great irony of course, having done all this, canot now use any of it for the forseeable future.Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2020-03-23 at 07:23 AM.
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2020-03-23, 08:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
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2020-03-23, 12:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Yah.
One time I DID do something like that was when I basically taight myself how to Excel (with help) to make the spread sheets for calculating the points costs and stuff for my starship wargame. It tooj me about a month (and I still occasiobnally find a little bit of the more obscure stuff) to do it, but it was absolutely essential; at one point, I made a MAJOR change to the points costs and I had to go through each of the 40-plus fleets we have to implement it and even with the spreadsheet, that was a task and a half, and I was basically just copy-pasting one cell. Trying to do it by manually calculating it all by hand would have been INSANE! (Crude and clunky though it is, I also give it out as part of the free guff package that you can download for my rules, so anyone can potentially benefit from it as well!)
I also did recruit some help from these very forums to sort some macro stuff out for my spell lists, which means all I have to do is paste in a table of contexts as an index an it automatically puts all the page references in (and even changes the background colour with a button!)
So there are absolutely times when it's worth setting up the future infrastructure. The page numbers case was not one of them, I fear, given that it was 2-3 hour's work, but that's about all.
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2020-03-23, 12:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
As little as I like to, this is where I recommend learning how Word uses "Styles" (and yes, you can self-teach, I did). They are actually very powerful and very useful (so long as the document is only ever updated by people who understand them). The most annoying part about them is that the forms you need are not all obvious how to reach...
Basically a Word style is a formatting pack (which can include instructions for the style to use next) and they can be assigned to ribbon buttons (the style gallery) which make them very powerful as you can just go through your document clicking a style button for each paragraph.
What makes them even better is that you can update the formatting of all text in a given style in one go.
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2020-03-23, 01:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
I have used that, actually, though mostly as a way to format titles which I can then use to create my tables of contents. Which I have in almost all my documents now. (I could, in theory, translate my big feat list to an excel format just like I have with my spells, actually, having carefully done that to feats as well. I guess I might do that at some point, since it's not like I'm going to have much to do for the next several months in the time I would normally be doing quest-writing or scenario writing and I probably won't spend ALL my non-work time just playing games; today (which the end of my weekend) I elected to make a little bit of a start preparing the next bit of Shackled City for a year-plus-who-knows after we start and finish the last two books of Rise of the Runelords.)
It doesnt help, though, with stuff like class tables or for the document in question, the bolding of class abilities preceeding the description, nor ot italisations of stuff like spell names, because I'd have to do all that manually.
(Heck, that said, it even DID take quite a while to go through all the feat titles one by one and change the style from just bold text to make it something the ToC could grab...!)
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2020-03-23, 01:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Last edited by Telonius; 2020-03-23 at 01:25 PM.
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2020-03-24, 03:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
You save so much work in Word if one approaches it like it was programming and not just typing text you then style. Like making sure text are distinctly headers and paragraps so can consistently use styles and so on. One of those things I try and teach people, pre-work saves you a lot of after-work (and gives you more time for afterwork beer).
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2020-03-24, 06:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
In fairness, some of these documents (the spells, particularly) probably date back to AD&D when we first had the PC (mid-90s), long before this was a thing (or at least before we even had internet and people that knew about it to KNOW it was a thing; they certainly weren't teaching it schools/college twenty-five years ago...!) It's one of those things that's useful to know now, but a decade or two ago before it became such a massive endeavour (there's a different between a page or ten and 100+ pages, after all!), it wasn't at all obvious, even if the functionality existed.
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2020-03-25, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
(Feels like it's not worth starting anew thead for this, so ecuse th double-post.)
Is there any way of changing a style format to become a header, or at least show up in the navigation pane? Apparently, the title styles I used for the spells and feats are paragraph, not headers, and as such they don't; show up in the navigation panel. Now, this is obviously irrelevant to when I print it out, but it might be nice if I could have that for when playing at home and I have my machine open. It's hardly a critical thing, but it'd be nice if it was possible. (As usual googling stuff for Word ends up with tons of results which tell me nothing...)
(As you can imagine, I RE-HEEEEEALLY do not want to have to go through an manually change the heading styles for approximately *checks by pasting ToC into excel* MMMMNNGH! over 3600 feats and spells (!), it's just not worth it for the time involved.)
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2020-03-25, 04:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Word 2010 page number problems
Yes there is. Quick google search found this.
But, to summarise:
1. Edit (Modify) the style you want to amend.
2. Ensure the "Style based on" is set to blank (null).
3. From the Format drop-down select Paragraph.
4. Set the "Outline Level" dropdown to something other than "Body Text"
The Outline Level you choose determines how it appears in the navigation pane.Last edited by Khedrac; 2020-03-25 at 04:04 PM.
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2020-03-26, 09:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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