Hi everyone!


I have been working on a manual for a while and created a manual with separated sections (s/breaks), unlinked the headers by sections and managed to get even separate pages for each section!
But now I have to do a new revision and apparently I am expected to show Revision dates of each page affected. Unfortunately, when I change one page it alters the headers of an entire section. Is there any way to fix this without re-writing/editing the entire manual from scratch?

A sample is attached. Thanks in advance!

Attached Files

sample.docx (214.3 KB, 1 views)

Use a footnote. By their nature, headers and footers are for multiple page parts called sections. Creating multiple sections to do this will cause you untold grief.

Header/Footer Settings Recap

What you are asking for is very anachronistic in modern documents that don't get printed for individual page updates but there has never been a Word good solution to align with this workflow that was developed specifically for the hand-written sheet and typewriter days of olde. Because of text flowing from page to page and edits causing repagination that impacts content on other pages, changes made on one page will often cause text flow changes to other non-edited pages - do these get revision dates marked up too?

In the headers you can't include any page-by-page varying date modified field so the simple solution doesn't exist.

What you can do is add a floating text box containing a date which is anchored to the edit on the page. That floating text box can then be positioned so it appears in the header area.

It strikes me that if your document had tracked revisions you could also develop a macro to automate the creation/update of a textbox appearing in your preferred location on pages that have marked edits and that could show the most recent date of edits. It would be quite complex and probably have to align dates with 'release dates' rather than actual 'edit dates' - eg if I make a series of edits over a week and then take a month to review and approve, when you finally issue the updated pages, what date should be on each of the changed pages?

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Thanks for an explanation! I was trying to place box inside the header, then I got that it has to be placed inside of a page at first. ) Yes it's pretty old fashioned but still used in my field. Have a good day!

You may want to look at I want to include the chapter number with the page number in the Header - how can I do this? by John McGhie, MVP

I've had a think about this puzzle and think I've come up with an elegant way to do what you are trying to achieve.

The only way I know to get the header to vary from page to page is making use of Styleref which happens to have a optional switch which makes the styleref field search from the bottom of the page vs the normal search from the top. It strikes me that we can make use of this to build a nested field which responds to flagged content on the page.

So start by creating a Character Style and call it 'Edits'. Don't give this new style any attributes at all so that when you apply it, there is nothing visible on screen. Now apply this new character style to the FIRST word of the edited text. Also apply this style to the LAST word of the edited text. If these words are the same, pick a different word to flag the end of the edit.

Now in the header add a field with two nested fields inside. The field codes should look like this
{If {StyleRef Edits} = {StyleRef Edits \l} "Original Date" "Edited Date"}

If this shows as Edited Date on that page, go to the next page and verify that it shows Original Date on the next page. If so, then the hard part is done.

Now comes the fun part. Go to another page where you have made an edit, apply the Edits style in two different places on that page and enjoy.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

This is really a great idea. But I don't think it will work in my case, because there could be a 4-5 revisions of the document, and so 4-5 different dates. Then I will have to create a new style every time it seems?! :') In any way, I think this is getting too difficult to handle.
Thank you so much for your great tips!