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Old 07-20-2020, 08:20 AM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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Default All page numbers change to 2

Hi all,

Has anyone come across an issue where all page numbers in a given section suddenly change to the number 2? The issue was triggered when I tried to print the document to a local printer (my client and their supervisor also have the same issue on two other computer/printer setups).

Please see attached images. As soon as the user attempts to print, section 14 changes from 107, 108, ... to 2, 2, 2 ....

I have seen this occasionally over the years, and I believe I have normally just gotten around this by making a pdf (which is generally the only document needed at the end), but my current client needs to print the Word copy for their supervisor.

A few things I checked:


-My sections are not linked.
-No other formatting marks that I can see.
-Nothing funny going on in the header/footer area (not shown in screen shots but the same settings as all other header/footer areas in the doc).
-I tried remaking the section--no luck.

This only happens to one section in the doc, and only when trying to print (not when, for instance, updating the page numbers or even a full update of the TOC, which are made with styles Heading 1, 2, etc.).

At a loss.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg section page numbers all change to 2.jpg (94.2 KB, 16 views)
File Type: jpg all numbers are 2.jpg (51.0 KB, 16 views)
File Type: jpg section break seems normal.jpg (39.6 KB, 17 views)
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Old 07-20-2020, 11:36 AM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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Checking the field codes, I see that, after the attempted print, the page numbers in the affected section have lost their code entirely. The previous sections (pages 107 and prior, show {PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT}.

I attempted to remove all the page numbers and insert fresh ones with Alt + Shift + P, then saved the doc and attempted to print again. This time, instead of changing all the page numbers in the affected section to 2 (and removing the field code), it changes them all to page 152 (and removes the field code). It's hard to see the significance of that page number in the document, as 152 was not near a new section.
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Old 07-20-2020, 12:14 PM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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I found another thread with helpful info but am still facing the same issue. I tried running the macro suggested by Stefan, so it looks like my issue is different.

Also, for context, Tracked Changes is off, and there are no comments or tracked changes currently in the document.

I also tried Suzanne's suggestion from the linked thread to use Odd Page Breaks, but this did not change the outcome either (I do not believe I have a cover page, but I tried it anyway just in case).

Last edited by PrincessApril; 07-20-2020 at 12:20 PM. Reason: Added attempted solutions
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Old 07-20-2020, 12:52 PM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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Next attempt:

Tried removing all page numbers and all breaks from the doc. Began adding section breaks and ensuring unlinked.

Now when trying to print, starting at the same point in the document (should be page 108 in the numbering scheme), all pages in that section, in the prior section, and in the next three sections change to roman numeral i (but all other sections before and after those mentioned retained the correct numbering). Field codes are removed from the page numbers of the affected sections.
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Old 07-20-2020, 01:17 PM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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Found a solution that works for this document at least. I removed all of the field codes with Alt + Shift + F9, and now the user can print the document without triggering the error noted above.

What led me to this solution was another thread; I could not fully understand the OP's reasoning for the solution, but it gave me the idea of removing my cross-referenced table and figure callouts. I had abandoned using table and figure referencing years ago. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why.

So I suppose that a better solution would be to figure out which of the cross references were causing the issue, as I imagine it was not all of them given that only certain sections were affected. That way we could retain the cross referencing (as of course it is useful to readers of electronic documents, especially long documents), but for now it will have to do.
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Old 07-20-2020, 02:01 PM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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I celebrated a bit too soon. Removing the field codes globally caused some issues (I only had a handful of cross-referenced tables and figures and no citations/refs), but it was still an issue. I started again and went through the field codes individually and removed the cross-referenced fields, which solved the issue without introducing new issues.


This is not an ideal solution because some documents have tons of field codes, which would likely make this approach impractical. Although I plan to avoid cross-referencing again moving forward, in some cases I'll likely be forced to, so it would be helpful if anyone has ideas of how to solve the problem in the OP more elegantly, especially in documents with many cross-referenced elements.
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Old 07-20-2020, 05:25 PM
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If you select the page number in the footer for Section 14, and toggle it so you can see it - what is its field code? It should be simply {Page}
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Old 07-20-2020, 07:17 PM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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In the future, please reduce the size of graphics posted. Wide graphics make it hard to read posts, at least for me.


Go to the footer in Section 14 and select the "2." Press Alt+Shift+P.
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Old 07-20-2020, 09:11 PM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guessed View Post
If you select the page number in the footer for Section 14, and toggle it so you can see it - what is its field code? It should be simply {Page}
It was at first {Page \* MergeFormat} and then after I reinserted with Alt + Shift + P it was just {Page}.

After doing so, the page numbers would still change after hitting Ctrl + P (and the {Page} was lost in the affected sections. If someone posts about this in the future and it seems as though the poster has manually typed in page numbers, that might not be the case. I saw some old threads here and on other forums, where the response was that the poster was probably typing in page numbers. This bug or interaction or whatever we might call it actually removes the {Page} from the page numbers of affected sections when the user tries to print, and all the page numbers in the affected sections then appear as manually entered numbers (usually the same number throughout the whole section).

Something with the cross-references/bookmarks was interfering and appears to have been an issue in at least one other case (linked above). I didn't have time to run trial and error to single out which ones, so I ended up removing all the clickable cross-references to the table titles and figure captions (e.g., see Table 4.3, where 4.3 was a cross-reference to the actual table title of the same number). Then I was able to print the document without the problem described above.

I wonder if one of my cross-references was somehow connected to a footer area, although I don't recall that being the case.

Not a perfect solution given that I lost the cross references, but it had to be done with the timeline at hand.
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Old 07-20-2020, 09:18 PM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon View Post
In the future, please reduce the size of graphics posted. Wide graphics make it hard to read posts, at least for me.


Go to the footer in Section 14 and select the "2." Press Alt+Shift+P.
I removed all breaks and page numbers and added all page numbers this way, but upon attempting to print the doc, the {Page} field code was stripped from certain sections in the document. The solution in the end was to remove field codes from cross-references/bookmarks within the document text, at least one of which was interacting somehow with the print command to cause the issue in the OP. Wild times!

And yes, so sorry---those images are huge.
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Old 07-20-2020, 09:28 PM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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That it was missing on some pages tells me that you have multiple header/footers operating.
Header/Footer Settings Recap
Toolkit for Advanced Management of Headers and Footers



Cross-reference fields should have no effect on page numbering unless they are somehow part of the header or footer.
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Old 07-22-2020, 05:32 PM
PrincessApril PrincessApril is offline All page numbers change to 2 Windows 10 All page numbers change to 2 Office 2019
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon View Post
That it was missing on some pages tells me that you have multiple header/footers operating.
Cross-reference fields should have no effect on page numbering unless they are somehow part of the header or footer.
I suspect this was the case. Can't officially confirm it, but the fact that removing the cross references solved the problem, I think this was the issue.

Thank you for the resources as well!
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