unpredictable pagination

[Chip Orange]

I have to do some Word user support here where I work in addition to
developing automation solutions involving Word.

Recently I had a user who printed a document, and it had two copies of page
2. Even stranger, they weren't quite identical; differing by a couple of
lines.

She has since saved on top of the document in question, and now of course
the problem is not reproducible.

She'd really like to know what could have caused this, in order to avoid
possibly sending out a bad document printout (she didn't catch the fact that
she had two copies of page 2).

Does anyone know of anything that would cause the pagination to change "on
the fly" as it was printing? Any other ideas?


Thanks.

Chip

[Character]

Post by Chip Orange
I have to do some Word user support here where I work in addition to
developing automation solutions involving Word.
Recently I had a user who printed a document, and it had two copies of page
2. Even stranger, they weren't quite identical; differing by a couple of
lines.
She has since saved on top of the document in question, and now of course
the problem is not reproducible.
She'd really like to know what could have caused this, in order to avoid
possibly sending out a bad document printout (she didn't catch the fact that
she had two copies of page 2).
Does anyone know of anything that would cause the pagination to change "on
the fly" as it was printing? Any other ideas?
Thanks.
Chip

Could be any number of things.

You can restart pagination with any number when you start a new Section.

You can put plain text (not a field) into a header or footer that
would then look like a page number. (If I type
Page 2
in footer, it will appear exactly the same whether it's on Page 2 or
Page 117)

There are probably a dozen other ways this could have happened -
without the original document of course, who knows which one it was!

- Character

[Chip Orange]

Post by Character

Post by Chip Orange
I have to do some Word user support here where I work in addition to
developing automation solutions involving Word.
Recently I had a user who printed a document, and it had two copies of
page 2. Even stranger, they weren't quite identical; differing by a
couple of lines.
She has since saved on top of the document in question, and now of course
the problem is not reproducible.
She'd really like to know what could have caused this, in order to avoid
possibly sending out a bad document printout (she didn't catch the fact
that she had two copies of page 2).
Does anyone know of anything that would cause the pagination to change
"on the fly" as it was printing? Any other ideas?
Thanks.
Chip

Could be any number of things.
You can restart pagination with any number when you start a new Section.
You can put plain text (not a field) into a header or footer that would
then look like a page number. (If I type
Page 2
in footer, it will appear exactly the same whether it's on Page 2 or Page
117)
There are probably a dozen other ways this could have happened - without
the original document of course, who knows which one it was!
- Character

Thank you for your response.

Let's say, because she says so, that she only saved out of habit
(immediately after the print), but made no changes.

I've checked the document for the conditions you've listed and they don't
exist.

Is there any condition or bug that would appear to cause Word to repaginate
the document in the middle of the print job (that's what it looks like).

Thanks.

Chip

[Chuck]

There is a microsoft add in for word that removes "stuff" not desired in the
final document. It's presence is shown by a "Remove hidden data" selection
in the file drop down. This may help.

In the past when such things occur, I've had to take rather draconian steps,
such as copying (clipboard) the entire document into notepad, or in some
cases write, and then copying it back to a new blank document. Forcing word
to recreate the default document template may also help. Using write was
useful, in that it just might show what was going on in terms of added data.
A binary editor/ lister was also of some use in diagnosing similar problems.

One common cause was found to be a combination of specific users and
keyboards. Seems a fast typist or a poor typest can cause unexpected
keycodes to be generated. Sometimes these are taken as valid commands, and
cause word to do strange things.

Post by Chip Orange

Post by Character

Post by Chip Orange
I have to do some Word user support here where I work in addition to
developing automation solutions involving Word.
Recently I had a user who printed a document, and it had two copies of
page 2. Even stranger, they weren't quite identical; differing by a
couple of lines.
She has since saved on top of the document in question, and now of course
the problem is not reproducible.
She'd really like to know what could have caused this, in order to avoid
possibly sending out a bad document printout (she didn't catch the fact
that she had two copies of page 2).
Does anyone know of anything that would cause the pagination to change
"on the fly" as it was printing? Any other ideas?
Thanks.
Chip

Could be any number of things.
You can restart pagination with any number when you start a new Section.
You can put plain text (not a field) into a header or footer that would
then look like a page number. (If I type
Page 2
in footer, it will appear exactly the same whether it's on Page 2 or Page
117)
There are probably a dozen other ways this could have happened - without
the original document of course, who knows which one it was!
- Character

Thank you for your response.
Let's say, because she says so, that she only saved out of habit
(immediately after the print), but made no changes.
I've checked the document for the conditions you've listed and they don't
exist.
Is there any condition or bug that would appear to cause Word to repaginate
the document in the middle of the print job (that's what it looks like).
Thanks.
Chip