Deleting continuous section breaks

[Ulodesk]

From long experience, I avoid continuous section breaks (CSB) like the plague, but occasionally I have to deal with them in business proposals, when a writer has inserted thmn for what should be a borderless table. I had this experience yesterday, with the following difficulty.

Two documents, each from our template, which has a next-page section break (NPSB) after the title page and another after the front matter, before normal page numbering begins. One doc had two CSBs on one page; the other, as far as I could tell (even checking the full document in draft view), a surprising three. In both cases, I was unable to delete the CSBs without having the NPSB preceding them changed into a CSB. (In one case, removal also eded up converting every text paragraph to a comma followed by a space, but the document may have had some unrelated corruption.)

I tried separating the CSBs from the NPSB above with extra paragraphs, an addtional NPSB, and so forth, but the conversion happened each time.



In both cases, my only solution was to delete all section breaks and transfer everything after front matter (minus a final emplty paragraph), into a fresh document based on the same template with its title page and front matter properly segregated.

My questions are why the conversion of the NPSB occurs, and whether there is a method of deleting the CSBs without encountering this difficulty.

Thank you.

[macropod]

An unfortunate side-effect of deleting ‘Continuous’ Section breaks in Word is that they tend to cause the preceding ‘Next Page’ Section break to be converted to a ‘Continuous’ Section break. A workaround is to convert the Section break to the same kind as the one that precedes it, then delete break. You can do that via Layout>Page Setup>Layout>Section Start.

The following macro automates the process. Simply select a range spanning the unwanted break before running the macro.

Sub DelSctnBrk()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
With Selection.Sections
  .Last.PageSetup.SectionStart = .First.PageSetup.SectionStart
  .Last.Range.Characters.First.Previous.Delete
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

[Ulodesk]

Thank you, Paul; much obliged.

[Ulodesk]

Paul, I think I need a bit of further clarification.In the attached text document, which replicates the situation I had -- multi-coluns between 2 CSBs and an odd CSB further on. I have tried running your macro various ways, with different results. I see that it says, Selection, which I take to me that I must select a part of the document at least including the three CSBs. I assume that including more in the selection is not a problem. When I run the macro in this manner, it converts the document above the section also to 2 columns.

If I select only the text between the first two section breaks, it works, leaving a single NPSB above, but this leaves the remaining CSB in place.

I know you are a master at macros. Is there something I have misunderstood from your indication?

Thanks.

[macropod]

The macro converts the last Section break in a selection to the same format as the first Section break in/preceding the selection then deletes the last Section break; it doesn't process multiple Sections.

There is no attachment to your post.

[Ulodesk]

Thank you for the clarification. If I select the 2-column text and the second CSB, the macro then removes both CSBs, returning the 2-column text to one and leaving the NPSB above. Selecting the remaining, odd CSB further down and running the macro deletes it without altering the NPSB.

Very useful!