Deleting a section break in Word messes up previous section

[IFRs]

In a document with multiple sections, each with their own headers, when I delete the last section break the previous section inherits the deleted section's formatting.

Of course, that's not what I want !!

Is there any way of deleting a section without it's properties being inhereted by the previous section?

 

[tallbarb]

It would be helpful to know just exactly what formatting properties are being "inherited". Would be glad to take a look at the document for you if you like.

 

[Marcs41]

If you delete a section break, anything after that becomes part of the previous one, that is normal, and most of the time, annoying.
The only way around that is to put a 'dummy' section break before the one you are removing, but even then result may vary.

Marc
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[IFRs]

tallbarb - What is really annoying is that the header and footer of the deleted section become the header and footer for the previous pages.

marcs41 - But, then the page count is off and printing wastes paper.

 

[Marcs41]

You can set/reset the page count on the new section.

But, what do you mean with wast paper? If you print it, it will be wasted anyway?

Marc
_{If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC!}

 

[IFRs]

marcss41 - To keep the header and footer intact on the previous section, I have to leave the last section there even thought the page is blank and useless. Then printing includes a blank page. I can manually set the page count in the footer but then I have to fix it each time I add pages to the previous section (that stinks). I just can't believe that Word does this !!!

 

[Marcs41]

Well. euh .. Word does this, because you first add a section, with specific setting, and then later remove it. There is no much of Word's fault in that. It can hardly 'guess' what you want as by removing a section break, you take away all formatting too, and all Word can do is revert to the previous settings.

As for the blank page, I really cannot tell you because I am not in front of it, but it is possible to avoid that.

 

[IFRs]

Perhaps I'm not being clear. Try this at home:

Start Word and begin a new document.
Put something like "Test 1" in the header and footer of page 1 (the only page that exists).

Now, put in some random text and at then a section break (next page type).

Now, change the header and footer in the second section to something like "Test 2".

Repeat as often as you like, making sections with different headers and footers.

See how your document has multiple headers and footers. Now, delete, for instance, the second section break and see that your first section header and footer now say "Test 2" instead of "Test 1". This behavior is non-intuitive, at best. Deleting a section should not affect the previous one's header and footer (I think).

Imagine if you will, a quotation document with the need for different headers on page 1 and page 2. Very typical, I think. Since you can only change headers between sections (right???), the template has two sections. If someone needs a short quote letter and deletes the second page, the first page will have the wrong header and footer.

In reality, our quotation template has 5 sections, each with different headers and footers. If we don't need some of the boiler plate sections and delete one of those sections, the deleted section's headers get moved to the previsous section, which is wrong.

Am I just stuck with extra blank pages in my quotation? And manual page numbering?

Does WordPerfect work the same way?

 

[TonyJollans]

Hi IFRs,

I followed your instructions to the letter and when I deleted the second section break (at the end of the second section). I got section 1 with section 1 headers (as before), section 2 with section 3 (as was) headers, section 3 with section 4 (as was) headers, etc. The section 2 header and footer were deleted along with the section 2 delimiter. This is what I expected and, although not what you describe, is I suspect what you get.

I do agree it is not entirely intuitive, but as far as I know you are stuck with it. Section attributes are held along with the trailing section delimiter - delete that and attributes from what becomes the new trailing delimiter take effect. This works well if you delete a complete section (or the section break following an empty section) but not very well when there is text in both sections. There is an analagous situation with paragraphs but the behaviour when you delete a paragraph delimiter differs according to whether there is text in the paragaraph or not.

The problem I think you have is that you are trying to delete a section by removing the leading delimiter rather than the trailing delimiter (not that you have a whole lot of choice if you want to delete the last section). You might be able to find a workaround by changing the headers and footers in the section about to be deleted to be 'same as previous' before deleting the section - and if you attached some code which did it to a toolbar button you could make a reasonable interface but it's far from ideal and I can only sympathise.

Don't know about WP, I'm afraid, so can't answer your final question.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[Marcs41]

I just came to a similar conclusion, after fighting with some options for different pagenumbers etc.

No info on WP either, sorry.