Hi,

I'm having an issue in word where I have a bunch of subheadings with information in each. When all headings are expanded, the text all aligns correctly. However, if only some subheadings are open, the content across the pages gets skewed so for example it could run onto another page or there are more spaces between content. Any idea how to solve this issue so no matter what subheadings are open the content displays correctly? I've tried page breaks but doesn't seem to work as intended.

Example:

Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3


Content
Heading 3
Content
Heading 3
Content
Heading 2
Heading 3
Content
Heading 3
Content

Thanks

Would probably need to see the document. You would need to check the paragraph settings on each of your Styles (Heading 1, 2, 3, Normal, etc.).

Hope you are looking at your document with the formatting symbols displayed so you can see if you have any stray line returns, paragraph returns, etc. in there. You can also hit SHIFT + F1 to get the Reveal Formatting pane up, and poke around in your doc to see what is going on as you arrow around in the document.

What you are seeing is likely a combination of the space-before and space-after paragraph settings of the styles combined with the "Keep with next" paragraph settings.

• Improving the Bottom Line by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• Importance of Styles in Word
• Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly

Word's built-in heading styles, by default, are set to keep with the following paragraph. This makes sense because you do not want them separated from the content they are heading. It is how Heading styles, including custom styles, should be set. However, when you have a series of these without the body text to which they are related (i.e. collapsed), Word tries to keep them on the same page, which may not be possible or may lead to very strange looking documents.

If you need more help with this, you would be welcome to attach a small sample document here.

• How to attach a screenshot or file in this forum.
• More on how to clean-up a sample so as to not post confidential or proprietary information.

See example file attached. If all the headings are open, the formatting is fine. But if only some headings are open, the content gets skewed.

I guess I'm not seeing what your problem is.

"Other Accounts" has a different style than the other things under Accounts. The others are not using a Heading Style.
Under personal information, you might want to have a subheading "You" like the one for Dependents.

Using Shift+F1 to reveal formatting, I see that you applied a different Indent to your Heading 4 for Dependents.

So the issue is when some of the subheadings are open, the content gets skewed on another page. Is there any way to prevent this from happening?

Attached Images

Untitled.png (25.1 KB, 15 views)

"skewed on another page"
Are we talking about #2 Account Owner here?


This is not about expand collapse, then. It is about your table properties and the allowing rows to break across pages. If you want to keep tables together...

1. Set all paragraphs in each table except those in the last row to keep with next.
2. Set all rows to not allow the row to break across pages.

Yes account #2. It is not currently a table so would it be the Keep lines together option?

It sure looks like it ought to be a table!
See 4. Use Tables and Tabs to Arrange Text in Microsoft Word.

Keep With Next plus Keep Lines Together. Not Keep with next on the last paragraph you want grouped, though.

This is best done using paragraph styles. By not using styles you are making your life much harder. Importance of Styles in Word

This page was written about reorganizing pages but it is really about logical grouping of text. Moving/Reorganizing Pages in Microsoft Word

You want to use your heading styles. You are already doing that in some spots. Each part of your document that you want to keep on one page should:

• Start with a heading style that is set to keep lines together and keep with next.
• Have each body paragraph set to keep lines together and keep with next except the last paragraph of your logical grouping.

To the extent it will fit on a single page, Word will struggle to keep things formatted that way on one page. The problem comes up when you have a mass of paragraphs too big for one page all formatted that way. Word will give very flaky results in that situation.


Note that with the above formatting your headings are all keep with next and keep lines together. If you collapse headings, you may run into the problem I talked about with having too much formatted to keep together on one page.

Yes, that was my thought too- that this whole thing should be a series of tables, or even one big table with sub-tables in it, instead of all those disparate shapes.

I also think that your heading levels are a bit confusing. Since you only have two main sections, it may make more sense to number or letter the segments of the financial bit. You have sub-sub-headings that aren't styled as headings, like the pension CPP and OAS, which are indented differently. Dependents (spell check btw) isn't indented the same way Employment Income is, because you didn't employ a consistent style. I wouldn't personally indent those headers so much when the tables, or blocks that look like tables, are so wide.

I'm also seeing expanded fonts and I'm not sure what the purpose of that is where it occurs. I think you want to focus on consistency and tidiness. I like this person's YouTube tutorials on forms in Word, so maybe she'll give you some ideas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YktZ3B-tyqs

Ok this helps i think i can figure it out. Thanks!