TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
HELP!-Big Spaces at the bottom of Word Documents!?
Subject:HELP!-Big Spaces at the bottom of Word Documents!? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Kirk Turner <royj -at- alltel -dot- net> Date:Sat, 10 Dec 2005 13:00:49 -0500
Kirk Turner reports: <<... at times, for some inexplicable reason, Word
puts huge spaces on the lower half of my pages that I can't repair
easily.>>
Even with Word, there's always an explanation... it just may not be an
easy one to find or understand. <g> Odds are good that this is one of
the easily understood situations--if only you knew where to look. The
comments below also apply to most desktop publishing software, _mutatis
mutandis_, so they're worth learning. You noted:
<<I've checked the "options" and turned on show/hide paragraphs to see
the formatting marks, and I can't find out why Word is doing this.>>
Odds are good that it relates to paragraph settings in the style
definition. Have a look at the Paragraph definition for the style
that's causing the problem, but look in the Line and Page Breaks tab:
The usual cause of what you describe is having a checkmark beside "Keep
with next", which ensures that headings and the first paragraph that
follows them stay together. This is generally a good choice for this
setting because it prevents orphaned headings left all by their
lonesome at the bottom of a page.
Several other settings here may also cause what you describe.
Widow/orphan control is generally selected by default, and this would
also force text to the next page. Ditto for "keep lines together" and
"page break before". Again, both are good ideas in the right context;
the first avoids awardly broken-up paragraphs, and the second ensures
that certain key styles (e.g., chapter titles) always start on a new
page if that's your layout design.
Using these settings properly can be tricky. If you define them
appropriately at the beginning (i.e., to keep things together that
belong together), then you'll inevitably encounter occasional
situations in which you end up with too much space at the bottom of a
page. This is probably more acceptable than the single lines of text
that can appear at the top or bottom of a page if you turn off
widow/orphan control or "keep lines together".
If the extra spacing is truly offensive to you or is unduly increasing
the length of the manuscript (which can be important if you're
producing an expensive printed version), you can manually override
these settings wherever they cause a problem. Start at the beginning
and work your way through the layout one page at a time, fixing
problems as you find them. But doing so means that you'll spend lots
more time fiddling with the layout, because whenever you override these
settings, subsequent additions of text before the pages containing each
change will screw up many or even all of those manual page breaks.
The compromise solution is probably best: Live with the uneven spacing
until you're ready to print the book, and at the last possible moment,
create a copy of the file in which you manually fix the bad breaks.
That's the version of the file that you send to the printer. The
original version of the file doesn't contain these manual overrides, so
you can subsequently modify (update and revise) it to your heart's
content without worrying about undoing all those manual page breaks.
Then repeat the customization process with a new copy of the file when
you're ready to print the updated manual.
Now Shipping -- WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word! Easily create online
Help. And online anything else. Redesigned interface with a new
project-based workflow. Try it today! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
Doc-To-Help 2005 now has RoboHelp Converter and HTML Source: Author
content and configure Help in MS Word or any HTML editor. No
proprietary editor! *August release. http://www.componentone.com/TECHWRL/DocToHelp2005
