Deleting section breaks (Word 2003)

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Ok, I am tearing my hair out trying to figure this out! I see from the Help screen, that when a section break is deleted, that the previous section assumes the formatting of the deleted section. However, I want to keep my headers and footers in section 1 (the body of my document) and delete the attachments (section 2). Whenever I delete section 2, all of my header and footer formatting disappears. How can I retain it? This is from a company template, and to recreate it would be time consuming.

Thanks for your help!

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I don’t have Word 2003, but from your description, this behavior hasn’t changed. Section formatting is contained in the section break following the section. In the very last section of the document, it is contained in the last paragraph mark.

To preserve a section formatting do the following:
1. Place the cursor in the section you want to preserve.
Edited to Add: You must go into your header/footer for the next section & clear the “same as previous” button or the previous header/footer will be replaced by subsequent ones. I had forgotten to mention this. See post 412336.
2. Go to File/Page setup… & click OK.
3. Place the cursor in the following section & press F4 (repeats the last action). This will make the next section the same as the one about to be deleted.
4. Now delete the section break (easier to see in normal view).

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Thanks, Phil. I did that, and all of my headers and footers disappeared. I saved a working copy of the document, thank goodness. Any other ideas?

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Hi Kathy:
I’m sorry. The header/footers have to be set “same as previous” before doing it. See Dave Rado’s article Working with Sections. Note that you have to repeat this with the columns dialog box if your sections have a different column layout. Borders & shading is another dialog box you’ll need to visit if you have different page borders or shading.

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Hi Kathy:
I’m sorry. The header/footers have to be set “same as previous” before doing it. See Dave Rado’s article Working with Sections. Note that you have to repeat this with the columns dialog box if your sections have a different column layout. Borders & shading is another dialog box you’ll need to visit if you have different page borders or shading.

Reply | Quote

Thanks, Phil. I did that, and all of my headers and footers disappeared. I saved a working copy of the document, thank goodness. Any other ideas?

Reply | Quote

I don’t have Word 2003, but from your description, this behavior hasn’t changed. Section formatting is contained in the section break following the section. In the very last section of the document, it is contained in the last paragraph mark.

To preserve a section formatting do the following:
1. Place the cursor in the section you want to preserve.
Edited to Add: You must go into your header/footer for the next section & clear the “same as previous” button or the previous header/footer will be replaced by subsequent ones. I had forgotten to mention this. See post 412336.
2. Go to File/Page setup… & click OK.
3. Place the cursor in the following section & press F4 (repeats the last action). This will make the next section the same as the one about to be deleted.
4. Now delete the section break (easier to see in normal view).

Reply | Quote