I have a document that contains a table with a variable number of rows (populated by an external app). In the footer is another table (not variable number of rows) - this is actually the area where the customer signs, and has a bit of legal verbiage.

I want the footer to appear only on the last page, so I wrapped it in

See attached document example.

The problem is that the footer appears fine if the table in the body doesn't have many rows. It also appears fine if the table in the body has sufficiently many rows that part of it appears on the second page (then the footer table appears on the second page only).

But if the body table has enough rows that the footer table can't fit on page 1 (but not enough rows that some of the body table is pushed to page 2) the footer table doesn't appear at all. The attached example shows the same behaviour.

The question is - how do I make it so that if the body table is too big for the footer table to fit on the first page, the footer table prints on the second page?

Attached Files

Footer Sample.docx (21.0 KB, 23 views)

Try the following:
This may give you the footer on the last page and the preceding page. Otherwise it will be on the last page.
I know this is not what you want.

I'm sure that Paul Edstein will know how to do it better.

Thanks for the response - but I don't get it. PAGE should never equal NUMPAGES + 1, should it?

And I don't want the footer on the last page and the preceding page - always just on the last page.

And who's Paul Edstein?

It works. Try it. I know it isn't what you want. It is the best I can come up with. I do not understand the +1 either, but it does display on the last page. It will always display on the last page and in the instances where currently it goes missing, it will display on the last page and the next-to-last page.

The problem is that your footer changes the page size so that if it is not showing, the page is the last page. If it is showing, it is not the last page because it changes the pagination and thus doesn't meet the condition. I'm somewhat surprised it doesn't crash Word when it goes into this state.

You could make your table smaller so that it would always fit in the footer area and not change the space available for normal text.

Paul Edstein is a regular contributor here and elsewhere and the master of Word fields. He is a Microsoft Word MVP.
Look at some of the pinned threads on fields including this one. I expect he will look at this before long.

One of the things you mention I messed around with - the footer area. I made it bigger, so that the table would always fit in it, which I thought would be a good fix - but it didn't work. Didn't change a thing. And I can't figure out why it didn't.

I think the best you can do to achieve the desired result with the footer approach is to inspect the document to check the table actually appears on the last page and, if there's insufficient space for it, insert a manual page break at a suitable point. That said, it would look rather odd having an otherwise blank page with a table at the bottom of that page. Accordingly, you might do best to insert the table into the document body and let Word position it immediately after whatever preceding text you have - it's easy enough to ensure the table doesn't break across a page boundary.

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

Cross-posted at: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...ly-not-working and https://www.office-forums.com/thread...rking.2350293/
For cross-posting etiquette, please read: http://www.excelguru.ca/content.php?184

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

Hi, attached is a .docx.

Please note in the Word document I have placed text and tables that I created in Word 2016.

I have also turned the ftr into an image which I do not think is neither here nor there.

I have also pasted in the Word document a screenshot of Word >Options > etc
and you see that I have checked the boxes suppress line spacing.

This seems to have worked.

The 2016 Word document was going a little crazy on my screen.

Just print it and do not rely on Print Preview to be accurate.

I inserted extra rows in a table and the ftr appeared on last page.
I put only text and a table on page 1 and ftr appeared on page 1.

Let me know how you go with attached document and the Word File Options settings changed.

Janine

Attached Files

TestFtr.docx (110.8 KB, 28 views)

Thanks a lot - that does work on your document. Now I'll look at moving the settings, etc., over to mine and see how it goes

Thanks again for your efforts.