Deleting headers and footers

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Working in MS word 10 (Win 7), I’m finishing up a 350 pg book. Headers & Footers are not right so I am deleting all, cleaning up page and section breaks and praying I can start fresh and they will be right.

some headers won’t delete. Can anyone tell me possible reasons?

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Are you revision tracking? That is the most likely reason why you might have problems deleting a header.

If you need to clean up the document, delete EVERY section break and get the page setup and headers right before re-inserting section breaks where you need them.

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Thanks Andrew and Charles for your comments. I have removed all section breaks, and all headers and footers. Andrew could you say more about being sure H & F are right before I put section breaks back in? I’m thinking I need the section breaks to change the left header. and to change page no. format from front matter to body. I’m doing ch. title on left, book title on the right. Pg nos bottom outside.

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Every section potentially has three headers and three footers. If link to previous is checked, these may be set in a previous section even though not displayed.
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/sections2007.htm#Recap_of_Header/Footer_settings

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There is no “left” header. There are odd and even headers. These can be reflected on the left and right when you add mirror margins.
This page on Front Matter gives directions for setting up the page numbering.

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Thanks for the referral to pagination. Very helpful. So, my 350 pg ms. in Word 10 is coming along. The page numbers are great: i – xix in the front matter, 1-330 in body. The recto headers are set, looking good. Now the problem. I reinserted the section breaks. I’m working on the verso pgs with chapter names. The link to previous is greyed out. Any idea why?

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Thanks for the referral to pagination. Very helpful. So, my 350 pg ms. in Word 10 is coming along. The page numbers are great: i – xix in the front matter, 1-330 in body. The recto headers are set, looking good. Now the problem. I reinserted the section breaks. I’m working on the verso pgs with chapter names. The link to previous is greyed out. Any idea why?

Yes. A header can only link to a header of the same type ((main) header, different first page, odd (recto/right) page, or even (verso/left) page). So since you were in the first verso header in the document, there was no previous one.

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No clue. Thought, though… When you are seeing this is there any chance your insertion point is inside a Frame, Textbox or Table?

I gave you a link to my page on Sections. You might also want to look at Working with Sections.

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The link to previous is usually greyed out when you are in the first section (since there isn’t a previous one).

I haven’t seen any cases where it greyed out on other sections so if this is happening for you perhaps you could post a document that demonstrates the problem.

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The greyed out link to previous was as you thought: a missing section break. I feel close to getting this ms. corrected, recto header went great for first four chapters. Each remained as it should be as I progressed. Now Ch. 5 changes everything before it. I’m thinking it has something to do with Word working headers back to front. I don’t see what’s different from this chapter opening compared to the 1st four. I did however, start at the end matter at first to put in the rectos. That wasn’t working so I started working front to back. (If you recall, this is a clean up project on headers/footers.)
I’ll look at “working with sections” but would also appreciate your ideas. . . . thanks for helping me with this.

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You are correct that Word works header and footer settings back to front in that inserting a section break sets off the section before the break.

If you change a header that is linked to previous, it changes the header in the previous section as well. If you break the link in section 3, then a change in the header for section 2 will not change the header is section 3 and vice versa. If you have different headers and then link section 3 again, section 2 will adopt the header in section 3 via the link.

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When I realized what was happening I thought I had a still hidden break and removed Ch. 5 break. Then reinserted it.

So, does that mean I need to remove the section breaks and start again?

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No, don’t go removing section breaks! Put breaks between sections as needed. Then go to the last one that you want formatted differently. Go into the header and break the link with previous. Set it up.

Move forward to the next section and repeat as needed.

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How is this book going to be published? It sounds like you need a proper structured document writer rather than Word. For example, you should be able to specify that chapters always start on an odd page and it will do it without your needing to insert page breaks manually. Word is pretty hopeless at that sort of thing (you can set a style to put a page break before, but not specify a start on an odd or even page), and won’t output provisional quality typesetting either, e.g. it doesn’t suppress space before paragraphs at the top of pages. You really shouldn’t have to mess about changing section and page breaks manually. What if the publisher changes the paper size from what you have assumed? All that manual pagination will be useless. You need to set the function of each division of your text — chapter / section etc — and let the software sort out the formatting.

That said, I cannot recommend a WYSIWYG structured document writer to the OP. Has anyone got any recommendations as I want one myself?

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Arowland

There is a very big difference between “Word can’t do” and “I don’t know how to make Word do”. Yes, Word is not a page layout program but the when it comes to authoring content it is the market leader by a massive margin. You raise a good point about the usefulness of an ‘odd/even page break before’ setting. That would be a welcome feature to a very small group of users (and would avoid the need for a section break) but often users would also require page numbering to also restart (requiring a section break) and maybe a ‘page intentionally blank’ (requiring manual or macro intervention).

The software alternatives are a bit thin on the ground however. I don’t know of any software that deals with this automatically. I’ve used about 6 different page layout programs and have never seen a feature that deals with the variety of new chapter options that a book publisher might want. However, it is not something I’ve done a lot of so they could have very slick implementations that I haven’t seen.

IMO, Word is the tool of choice for authoring, and if you choose to do the publishing from the same software, the various new chapter options can be handled with the judicious use of macros. Going to another software package for publishing is (more expensive and) time consuming and offers no quick solution. Newer database-type tools that separate content from formatting such as Madcap Flare are worth exploring if you are really keen but any solution is going to need a lot of customisation to do ‘what you want’ since there is massive variation in book publishing.

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There is a very big difference between “Word can’t do” and “I don’t know how to make Word do”.

Rebuke accepted. Chapters starting on odd or even pages can be done with sections, I have discovered, but the fact that it is far from intuitive and took some Googling to find does support my argument that Word is far from ideal as a document processor. It has no concept of ‘chapters’ (for example) so it all has to be kludged with manual changes which, if the structure changes in some way, have to be removed and re-kludged as the OP found when he repaginated.
Another example, that bugs me far more often than the chapter issue, is lists. For a professional appearance I want a certain amount of leading after a list. I have to kludge it by expanding the ‘space after’ of the last paragraph in the list, and if I later need to add a further item to the end of the list, I have to remove the kludge and kludge the new last item. I find myself doing this all the time, even in relatively short documents. And all because Word does not let you assign things like ‘space after’ to a list as a structure. Even less does it let you assign all the properties of a structure like a chapter, section or subsection in one place, so that you define a section, for example, as having a certain paragraph style for the heading, another for the body, define which page it starts on or whether it is continuous, whether numbering restarts and so on. Instead we have to do it manually for each new section, which is error prone and any changes have to be applied to every section individually. It is a word processor, not a document processor.

The software alternatives are a bit thin on the ground however… IMO, Word is the tool of choice for authoring… Newer database-type tools that separate content from formatting such as Madcap Flare are worth exploring if you are really keen…

Alas. I certainly can’t afford what Flare costs for my modest usage. Thank you for your suggestion, though. I have investigated Lyx but it has a steep learning curve and cannot rival EasiWriter which I remember from my Acorn days (and is still available for RiscOS from Icon Technology). It showed that an easy to use, intuitive document processor that can span the range of ‘type and go’ wordprocessing for a one page letter through to a complex structured technical manual is possible. This is a big gap in the market. But the sheer power of Word’s stranglehold, so that even the alternatives are just imitations of it, seems to have deterred anyone from attempting to sell an alternative at anything less than corporate pricing.

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Another example, that bugs me far more often than the chapter issue, is lists. For a professional appearance I want a certain amount of leading after a list. I have to kludge it by expanding the ‘space after’ of the last paragraph in the list, and if I later need to add a further item to the end of the list, I have to remove the kludge and kludge the new last item.

Hi arowland,

If you use styles, this can be almost instantly addressed by telling the list style to have space after, but turning it off between paragraphs of the same name. In other words, you type five entries in your List Number 2 styled-list. The next paragraph is Body Text and Boom, you have your space after. Add another item to the end of the list? Doesn’t matter–there will still be space after and none between items. Automatically.

If you’re not using styles, why?! Styles are the single greatest time-saver in Word and automatically do most of the things people waste time doing manually.

Re using the Normal style, I tend to disagree that it’s ok. I’ve found it invites confusing formatting and in a collaborative environment is a huge time-waster. It’s also like using a typewriter. And I haven’t met a single person who’s used ‘clear all’ that’s done it a second time.

Styles are Word’s distinction between content and formatting.

Just sayin’ Kim

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Arowland

It would be great to see a good solution to the end of list spacing. I have always used an empty paragraph with a style we call ‘Spacer’ for instances such as this but it is a kludge along the lines of the method you use. I would also like to see a good way to define when each separate list restarts (instead of requiring a local format override). I know in Framemaker you can define a different style for the first and/or last entries in each list which in my mind is just another way of kludging around the same issue. I would be interested to see how other software does this but I there may actually be no magic bullet that works for everyone.

At least Word does allow us to customise the software so that most issues can be resolved through good template design and macros.

Every different software package has various ways of doing things that annoy various users. For every ‘good’ feature of a package, it is never too hard to think of reasons why particular users would want to perform the task differently. For instance the concept of separating content creation from layout is great in principle but most users can’t imagine one without the other (and separating them just adds significantly to the review cycle).

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At least Word does allow us to customise the software so that most issues can be resolved through good template design and macros.

Yes indeed, templates, styles and macros are the three main tools in Word for getting the output you want. After a decade as a small publisher [simple books, retail fiction], my main basic tips for anyone regularly outputting more than a few long documents:

1. Never use Normal template. Make a template for the work, eg eBook.dot, Print.dot etc. This keeps you fully in control and protects against any potential vagaries in Normal template.

2. Within your custom template, never use Normal style or a style based on Normal. Create your own main style, say MainText, from scratch and make sure its not linked to Normal. Then create your other needed styles based on MainText, so they are not connected to Normal either. Like template, this keeps you fully in control and protects against any potential vagaries in Normal template.

Styles make kludging stuff like the List problem fairly easy. For such awkward cases, create either a LastListItem [based on the usual List Paragraph] style, or an AfterList style for use on the following paragraph, with the Spacing after/before modified. Assuming you write/edit with the Styles panel open, it’s only a click to get what you want. Kludge, yes; works, yes.

3. Once you start working with styles, do not do any more manual formatting [clicking Bold, pressing Enter for a blank line, etc]. If your document might be ‘polluted’ with manual formatting, you’ll never be able to problem solve with confidence in styles. Manual formatting wrecks consistency and accuracy, maintenance, time spent, and troubleshooting.

4. Macros take a bit of time to learn the basics, but will save you loads of time down the road if you regularly output documents which need to be in decent shape. They will also improve your accuracy. Start by using the Macro Recorder, and progress to copying and editing your previous macros to make new ones–you should be able to read the English-like code easily after a while, mostly Word commands and values.

There’s a nice combo of software at the Editorium and partners…
http://www.editorium.com/etkultimate.htm
…which is worth a scan. I found their stuff decent when I tested it ~10 years ago, and it should be useful if you don’t want to get into macros. It’s commercial, your needs will dictate if it’s value.

When I needed something extra or easier than Word’s capabilities, I reviewed or tested a lot of candidates and settled on Atlantis WP, a nice piece of software:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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I share you beliefs on using custom templates and styles. Like you, I avoid use of the normal style and styles based on the normal style. I don’t base much of my serious work on the normal template. I use it for scratch documents much like I use notepad.

That said, I think our attitudes toward the normal style are probably outdated. It is my understanding that the normal style is not nearly as problematic in Word 2010+ as it was in Word 97.

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I’ve always been an avid user of the ‘Normal’ style. I don’t know what problems you had in Word 97 but I am guessing that 18 years later perhaps your knowledge of styles has grown. IMO, the cascading nature of styles is a double-edged sword with good and bad aspects when modifying a base style. Creating a custom style and then basing other styles on it is absolutely no different to how the usual Word templates use Normal as the base style. Any problems you experience by modifying the base style are exactly the same whether that style is called Normal or something else. If you can’t get to grips with cascading styles then a simple macro can edit the styles so nothing is based on Normal.

In my mind, the penalty for not using ‘Normal’ is:
– an extra style in your list (unless you use one of the other built-in styles such as Body Text) since you can’t delete Normal
– extra work to point your preferred styles at a different base style
– extra work to apply your ‘base’ style to content pasted in from other users since they most often use default styles
– extra work to apply your base style to content that the user has used ‘clear all’ on
– the possible need to configure a custom keyboard shortcut to apply your base style – Normal is already configured with a shortcut

Whilst each of these things are relatively minor, they do constitute a significant time saving when editing files and content.

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Andrew,

Thank you for sharing your insights.

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Interesting, the turns this conversation has taken. I think that, early on, people avoided normal because of a long-standing (W’95 or ’97?) flaw in Word where the default font and other properties show up unbidden in a document. It happens when the normal style does not have the same settings as the defaults. An example of this is pasting a paragraph or passage into a paragraph in a different document. Both paragraphs are in the normal style but with different font settings. Neither has the default settings of the target document. The pasted passage gets the default settings (TNR etc. in W2003, Calibri etc. in W2007-13), and Word identifies its paragraph style as normal. Another example is that some styles based on normal show up in the document in the default settings instead of the settings in normal.

Pre-W2007, the defaults were hard coded for the version, so the only way to avoid the flaw was to avoid normal. When I started freelancing 12 years ago, most of my corporate clients, particularly their pubs departments, did not use normal. As far as I know, they still don’t. Now that the defaults are document properties, we can avoid or fix normal/default mismatches (the flaw’s cause), and we don’t have to avoid using normal unless we want to.

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Thanks for the info Pam. Yes, this thread has evolved a long way from the original question.

I haven’t seen what you describe and I wasn’t even aware that there was such a thing as the ‘default font’ which is independent of the style settings. Do you mean the option to ‘Use draft font in draft and outline views’ or is this default font something else altogether. You say the defaults were hardcoded prior to 2007 – are they configurable now? Is it defined at application, document or template level?

Did clearing the local font settings (ie Ctrl-Space) not resolve the abnormal font issue in the documents affected by the problem?

I do know about the theme fonts and how they can be applied to styles but I assume you are not talking about that in W95/W97.

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Thanks for the info Pam. Yes, this thread has evolved a long way from the original question.

I haven’t seen what you describe and I wasn’t even aware that there was such a thing as the ‘default font’ which is independent of the style settings. Do you mean the option to ‘Use draft font in draft and outline views’ or is this default font something else altogether. You say the defaults were hard coded prior to 2007 – are they configurable now? Is it defined at application, document or template level?

Hi, Andrew. The defaults are paragraph settings (font, font size, font color, paragraph position (indention and such), and paragraph spacing (incl. line spacing)). According to the 2008 Word Team blogs, they could not be changed by the user in W2003 and before. With W2007 they became document properties that can be changed by users. You can see them by going here: Styles Pane > Manage Styles > Defaults tab. You can change them there, through the Change Styles selections on the Home tab > Styles group in W2007 &10, or the Document Formatting group selections on the Design tab of W2013.

Did clearing the local font settings (ie Ctrl-Space) not resolve the abnormal font issue in the documents affected by the problem?

No. Clear formatting did nothing. What I did in W2003 was apply direct formatting that matched what my client wanted normal to look like or I retyped the passage. In W2007-13, I change the defaults to match whatever is in normal. Doing that is a quick and dirty fix, but it works.

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