Hi everyone, I'm looking for a bit of help with a document that I've created.



Essentially it's an operating manual for my company, but I'm having a bit of trouble with the footers. Every now and then a revision is made to certain pages, and I need to note that the change has been made to the page in the footer, by changing the 'Revision' i.e. 'Revision 3'.

The problem I'm having is that the document is broken down into 9 key sections. All of these have different headers and footers per section, but I need to be able to change the revision number on each page within a section.

Is this possible?

I know that I could create a section break every page, but this would completely ruin the sections that I've created as they all need to keep a continuous page number, so that isn't really an option.

Is there anything I can do?

Thanks

Revision numbers are for the birds! John McGhie can refer you to an industrial accident caused by this practice.

You can't put it in the footer unless you want separate sections for each page. You can have continuous page numbering without any problem doing that. However, you will not have continuous text. Imagine that you add a 6 line paragraph to an already full page. You will get to move text from section to section to section to section... Not fun.

You can make it look like it is in the footer, though. To do so, use a textbox or shape anchored to the part that you change. Position it where the footer is. Insert your revision information. This will make it difficult to edit but not as difficult as a separate section for each page.

Consider using footnotes instead?

In some ways, the StyleRef Field might work out for you. You would have to put the reference number somewhere on the page itself for that to work, and remember to change it every time it changes.

I think the example John McGhie cites is the Longford Refinery disaster, where the use of 'point pages' was identified as a contributory factor.

When I was doing regulatory documentation, we used change bars to highlight new/deleted/updated material compared to the previous version, with an overview list at the start of the document. We did not try to use 'point pages', but submitted a complete new version every three months.

So long as you still have to distribute information on paper, this is an intractable problem … even moving to on-line doesn't entirely solve it, given people's reflex "I'll just print this off for reference" response. Perhaps a print-disabled .pdf, but that's solving the question from 'our' point of view rather than making life easier for the reader.

Likewise, when I used to write procedure manuals and system documentation, Track Changes with red text and change bars for new content was used to ensure the updates were easily noticed. Immediately an update was issued, the existing set was archived, and all changes accepted in the working copy, so users could see any new changes for the next round. Prior to me instituting that approach, such manuals were often a dog's breakfast of out-dated pages, half-empty pages (because deletions/additions rarely fitted neatly into the same space) and bundles of updates that had never been inserted into the users' working copies. Reprinting entire Sections of the manual was soon recognised as a far more reliable way of getting updated procedures implemented - something that is essential in mission-critical systems.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I suppose you could do your manual in Power Point.

Or Publisher, I suppose, which would also give full control over pages...

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Publisher would be better.

The thing is, with text reflow as in Word, you are not going to be able to tie supplemental text down. I think Paul's solution of using Track Changes would be superior.