I have not seen anything to contradict this aspect of Word, except that if your document has more than one section, it is the section break which contain the formatting for the section above it. As it has generally been stated, the final pilcrow (paragraph mark) in a document contains an invisible section break.



As for the pilcrow or section break having to be Normal, that's a new one on me, and I don't know why it should be true, though it's possible. But I have never come across this.

Best,
Ulo

Many thanks, Ulo -- & thanks for the new word in my vocabulary!

The thing about Normal style may have been related to the 508-compliance work we were doing, and not to Word in general. We were never sure which guidelines we were given in that setting were 508-related, which ones were general best practice, and which ones were no longer true or just plain apocryphal.

Now I'm creating new templates & teaching others to use them, and I'm trying to clarify those things so as not to continue that cycle...this forum is a great resource!

Caroline