Word 2010 facing pages in print preview

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Oh no! Have MS completely stuffed up Word 2010?
Almost all of my big documents have ‘facing pages’ – different odd and even pages.
In W2007, Print preview would correctly show odd pages on the RHS, even on the left. So the first ‘spread’ had nothing on the LHS.
Just playing with W2010 – there’s no Print Preview, and the standard view of two pages shows the pages incorrectly.
Have I missed something or have MS completely stuffed this one up?
Peter

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There is a print preview which becomes visible when you choose File>Print. The page area is not huge since there are two big bands down the left side of the window before the preview area appears on the right side. The spreads appear correctly (nothing on first LHS) in this view and you can zoom the view in the bottom right corner.

Print Layout view shows the page contents correctly but not the page spreads.

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start rant
Must say, this is way so terrible. I can’t believe MS have got this so wrong. Did they consult anyone in the pre-production arena? Did they examine any standard workflows?
Totally junk.
I’m surprised there’s not an outcry on this.
end rant

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I wouldn’t expect a huge outcry – Word is not a page layout program so on-screen representation of page spreads are not often required.

What is the particular reason you need to see the two-page spreads? Why aren’t you using a page layout program?

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Andrew Lockton, my sympathies are with peterl in this thread. Your point that Word is not a page layout program is, of course, correct. But I suspect that, on a de facto basis, Word may be the most popular desktop publishing program in the world.

And seeing the two page spread is important, particularly for technical stuff that sort of gets scanned by users, so that the book (or booklet) maker can experience the user’s view of the book as early as possible in the process. At least that’s the way I feel about document making.

So, even though I never used this particular feature (I’m on a older version of Word), I also am disappointed that this is not available in Word 2010. I think peterl’s mini-rant is reasonable.

J. Till

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Good question.

I like Word – it’s actually a good WP program. Word has good TOC, index and other assembly tools.
InDesign, PageMaker et al are superb at layout, but their editing capabilities are not nearly as good as Word. And I don’t really need all their layout capabilities. They are more difficult to do the simple things.
Although I admit – Word sucks at layout, wrapping around images etc. Even more so now.

I need the two page spread as I produce training manuals (100 to 200 leaves). Word has ‘Different Left and Right Pages’, so to display them as such would be expected.
I can do the spread proofing once it reaches PDF as part of my workflow, but then I have to backtrack to make changes.

Even the ‘Full Screen Reading’ view doesn’t show it properly. If there was a place that should have it, it should be here.

It can be very frustrating that MS is so isolated from their actual users.

Thanks for your help though – really just needed to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

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Doug Robbins – Word MVP – has given me the (rather obtuse) answer:

Add the Print Preview Edit Mode command to the Quick Access Toolbar. You will find it in the All commands group. You will then see the same Print Preview as in Word 2007 with the Odd pages on the Right and the Even pages on the left if you select the option for Two Pages in the Zoom Section of the Ribbon.

I still consider that View>Full Screen Reading should show facing pages correctly (which it doesn’t currently). And as long as MS doesn’t go and remove Print Preview Edit Mode….

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The print preview still exists and in my opinion is finally in the correct location – as part of the print dialog box. Whilst you can zoom this preview area using the slider at the bottom, if you want to see two side by side pages then you need to set the zoom very small (40% on my monitor). As you zoom in closer, if Word can’t fit two pages side by side in the window, it pops the pages into a single column rather than hiding parts of the spread off the side of the window.

The problem is now:
1. That it isn’t part of the Views collection – Print Layout is the closest match but it doesn’t offset the spreads to correctly show facing pages.
2. The print preview is small on screen unless you have a giant monitor. It occupies the region to the right of a screen remaining after one narrow and one wide column have been shown.

What I think is now missing is the ability to hide the second column to maximise the width available to view the ‘preview’

Although you are free to disagree, I still consider the word “preview” to be an overview of the finished product and therefore in this context I would expect a “print preview” to show me thumbnails of the pages which I can zoom in on if I wish. The fact that the print dialog now allows you to change the printer and see the final pagination instantly is a massive improvement over the old way of changing printer drivers and having to cancel the print dialog to view the resulting pagination.

I see now that Print Preview Edit Mode is still available and gives you exactly what you wanted. The good news is that Microsoft have a history of not removing many old commands so you would be unlucky to lose this feature any time soon. Full-screen reading mode ignores the pagination in the interests of showing the text as large/legible as possible on screen. You should never rely on this view for final two-page spreads as the pagination is completely different to the final product.

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Good post Andrew, thanks.
There’s so many other options in View>Full Screen Reading, I wish they would add a ‘Display left and right pages properly’ option. MS – are you listening?
As a side note, there’s a nice summary of W2010 at http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/microsoft-office-word-2010-whats-new/
And the MS blurb at http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/getting-started-with-word-2010-HA010370239.aspx

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Hi,

I am also in the business of writing IT manuals. I just add one blank page at the beginning of the document and then zoom out to display two pages side by side that are still editable. When I am done with everything, I delete that blank page.

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Yes, that’s an option. A little clunky though. I guess I could write a mini-macro to add the page, go to full screen reading view, then delete the page afterwards.
Having Word do it properly would also be an option!

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Somewhere along the line MS have heard (but not told us) – Word’s normal print preview now properly displays facing pages.
As at 11 Mar 11, although I suspect they fixed it via some patch some time ago.
It would be nice if they were honest and said “whoops, sorry, we missed that one, we’ll fix it right away”.
Just updating this thread in case anyone comes looking.

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