Pagination

[Gary Collins]

Why does Word occasionally go to the next page in the middle of the current page instead of doing that at the bottom margin? This compromises uniformity.



Thanks.

[macropod]

That all depends on what paragraph formatting, margins, etc. you're using. Without seeing the particular document, one can only hazard a guess.

[Gary Collins]

Thanks for the response. Here are the default settings for this document: Normal template, 1 inch margins, letter size, Times New Roman font, size 12, spacing 0 pt. Before, 10 pt. After, Single Space, text Justified, Applied To whole document. No headers/footers.

There are 1,680 pages, most of which show a full page of text. Some pages, however, are arbitrarily abbreviated. Why is that? On the abbreviated page, I hit the DELETE key, text on the next page jumps up to the current page. Then, if I hit the ENTER key, the text jumps back to the page from whence it came, still leaving a large white space on the abbreviated space.

Very frustrating.

[Charles Kenyon]

Paragraph formatting (hopefully applied through styles) is the key.

• Keep with next
• Page break before
• Keep lines together

The effects of these can combine. For instance, most heading paragraphs are formatted both to keep lines together and to keep with next. Many executive summary paragraphs are formatted to keep lines together.

Sometimes a style with one or more of these attributes is applied to a paragraph (say a heading style) and then someone decides it isn't a heading and uses direct (not style-based) formatting to get it to not look like a heading. Then text from that paragraph gets pasted elsewhere in the document carrying that hybrid formatting with it.

It looks like you have a big project. I would advise learning more about Word formatting and styles before you go too far into it. Otherwise you'll be doing things you need to undo later on. Start with Styles and paragraph-level formatting.
Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word

[Gary Collins]

Thank you very much. I think you have put me on the right track to solving this problem. It is a fact that at various locations within the document I have used the functions you mentioned. Styles in formatting have not been used.

What I think is challenging is finding common ground between individual creativity and preformatted styling. Admittedly, I have tried creating my own 'style' of presentation, which may not always coincide with Microsoft Word formatting.

[Charles Kenyon]

Originally Posted by Gary Collins

Thank you very much. I think you have put me on the right track to solving this problem. It is a fact that at various locations within the document I have used the functions you mentioned. Styles in formatting have not been used.

What I think is challenging is finding common ground between individual creativity and preformatted styling. Admittedly, I have tried creating my own 'style' of presentation, which may not always coincide with Microsoft Word formatting.

The thing is that you can create your own styles or modify the built-in styles to suit your formatting. If you are working on a project of this size without using them, you are shooting yourself in the foot. I guarantee that if you spend four hours learning to use styles you will recover that time within a week and from then on you'll be time and work ahead. Here is another couple of links you may find helpful.
Tips for Understanding Styles in Word by Shauna Kelly
Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word - from Shauna Kelly

I take the liberty of quoting myself from the first link I gave you:

Trying to use Word without understanding and using styles is like pushing on a string. I resisted learning and using styles for years and now regret every day of those years because although that string was still very hard to push, it kept getting longer and longer, and had some very important projects tied to it! Once you understand styles and the Word concept of organizing things into Chinese boxes everything falls into place and instead of pushing a string, you can push a button that turns on the very powerful text processing machine known as Microsoft Word and it will start doing your work for you instead of running around behind you trying to undo what you thought you just did.