Thread: Word Not Saving Continue Page Numbering from Previous Section - Help

How big is your document? How many MB? How many pages?

Have you heard of and/or tried using something called "master document" feature in word? Word can be notoriously unstable in large documents and I have seen this software cause many meltdowns. I used master documents a lot for compiling large word documents with lots of graphics etc.

Originally Posted by windsock

How big is your document? How many MB? How many pages?

Have you heard of and/or tried using something called "master document" feature in word? Word can be notoriously unstable in large documents and I have seen this software cause many meltdowns. I used master documents a lot for compiling large word documents with lots of graphics etc.

Hello Windsock,

Thank you for the reply. I have not heard of Master Document and I am so frazzled at the moment attempting something new would be inadvisable. My wife goes in for a total knee replacement tomorrow, so I am using what time I have left tonight in attempt to put the thesis in its box.

Page count - well sorting out the reliability - is nominally - subject to change apparently - at 362 pages. Document consisting of main text of 10 chapters with associated hangers-on.

I have 'washed' some sections in Note Pad and pasted them back into the document and also changed 'Section Breaks" in the troubled area to 'Page Breaks'. So far so good. Though I have not reached an overall fixed conclusion about that status yet. So far so good - fingers crossed.

Kind regards
Lionel

Hello All,

Well, apparently the bug in the page number not continuing from the previous section has stepped back one section every time I changed Section Breaks to Page Breaks.

Now it turns out some of these Section Breaks are unavoidable - such as when portrait format is changed to landscape for wide images or tables.

So halfway through a chapter the page number will revert back to 0. Yep that was pretty handy. I am still on a search and destroy mission.

Due to a bug where I have selected the Table of Contents generate not to pick up Heading 5 level - my guidance from online Word wizards to make all my Appendices titles - because my main text headings only go up to Heading 4 level. Well the Table of Contents should only pick up Heading 1 to Heading 4 and go. "Nothing to see here" for Heading 5. Because this is what I have selected it to do. Regardless of this Table of Contents generator adds all the Appendices titles to the end of the Table of Contents - whoopie.

This means every time I go to change the Table of Contents I have to remove all traces of the List of Appendices. Then go to the end of the document and remove all the appendices and save the document. Then Update the Table of Contents.

Then paste back in all the appendices and go to the List of Appendices and copy in the Table of Contents from a new document that only contains the Appendices. Making sure that the start page number in the main document is correct I can change the page numbering sequence in the Appendices file to generate a List of Appendices.

This all depends on the Section Breaks allowing the page numbering to continue from the previous section ----- arggghhhhhhhhh

Where can I attribute this page number fault to? One time when I copied and pasted the dedicated Appendices file and pasted it into the main document some of the appendices had the university emblem appear as a header and I sure as hell never put them there. It is the faulty mandatory template raising its ugly head again.

Why am I writing all this stuff here? Because I am doing this work totally isolated - my wife can only commiserate and say that I have exceeded her level of endurance. In effect this site is the only thing keeping me sane.

I just want to pick up the spanners and work on Snowy my 110 Defender and get back to reality again. Thank you every one for your support. I am getting close to finishing - then again I could be in a delusional state!


Here we go doing a manual page count again....


The good news is that when I have made changes from Section Break to Page Break the page numbering changes have become permanent. When the file is saved - then closed - then opened up - the changes in page numbering have stayed consecutive and fixed - hooray!

You want to know the biggest laugh?

My major findings involve how pervasive the role as stress and anxiety is for diminishing functionality in all the different domains of life for individuals with Autism - of which I am one!

Kind regards
Lionel

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

You want to know the biggest laugh?

My major findings involve how pervasive the role as stress and anxiety is for diminishing functionality in all the different domains of life for individuals with Autism - of which I am one!

Kind regards
Lionel

Sorry, Lionel, but that is priceless. As is this. Word is an awful piece of bloatware. Word was pinched from WordPerfect, and in typical MS fashion it was ruined.

Sure, OK, that doesn't help you now. I assume your thesis is saved in in .doc format. I hope you have it backed up numerously. There are a number of free, online alternatives to Word. It can't hurt to try. Here is a good one: Home | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

If you know someone with a Mac, then Pages might help.

Of course, sadly, Word may have corrupted the entire document. If that has happened then you may need a text edit program to sort it out. I hope this is not your fate.

I have a friend who wrote a Psychology thesis, which I find impenetrable. but she wrote it and copied it on Word and Pages, across platforms. More than 2,000 pages. Makes sense.

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

Hello Windsock,

Thank you for the reply. I have not heard of Master Document and I am so frazzled at the moment attempting something new would be inadvisable. My wife goes in for a total knee replacement tomorrow, so I am using what time I have left tonight in attempt to put the thesis in its box.

Page count - well sorting out the reliability - is nominally - subject to change apparently - at 362 pages. Document consisting of main text of 10 chapters with associated hangers-on.

I have 'washed' some sections in Note Pad and pasted them back into the document and also changed 'Section Breaks" in the troubled area to 'Page Breaks'. So far so good. Though I have not reached an overall fixed conclusion about that status yet. So far so good - fingers crossed.

Kind regards
Lionel

Good luck with it all. Sorry to hear of the compounding stress this thesis would be generating in light of your wife's situation.

PM sent.

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

Hello All,

There is still a bug in my thesis. The transition for the last page of the conclusion to where the List of References start - automatically generated from EndNote - has a Section Break between the two parts of the document.

I have gone to the first page of the List of References and clicked on the Footer, highlighted the page numbering and clicked on 'Format Page Numbers'. I have clicked on the 'Continue from Previous Section' and saved the document multiple times.

Despite my saving the changes before I close the document, each new time I open the document up that same zero count starts on the first List of References page - what is going on? How can I fix it?

To repeat - Clicking on the Footer, highlighting the page number and clicking on 'Continue from previous section" is NOT a permanent fix like it should be. The change is somehow lost after the document is closed.

I tried removing the Section Break from that part of the document and the result was far from desirable. My next step is to copy a transition before and after the Section Break and dumping the section into Note Pad to remove any recalcitrant codes. Then pasting it back into the document. Okay I will have to delete the first reference from the document and re-cite so EndNote can reformat that entry - Fingers crossed

Just in case Note Pad does not work - Help!

Kind regards
Lionel

Hi Lionel
section, page breaks and orientation changes can alter sequence numbering. If you cannot fix it Copy it all or "save as" a new documents. Remove all formatting. Copy and paste to notepad or word-pad would also remove all formatting.

While that might seem scary remember 'FORMAT Paint' option. Have both old and new Document open side by side and use "Format Painter" tool to apply the formatting in blocks might be fairly quick

Use the Format Painter

Add the list/numbering before page and section breaks AFTER saving the new document with a step by step version. That would allow you to step back to work done IF an issue is recreated.

Hope your wife's surgery goes well.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by Tins

Sorry, Lionel, but that is priceless. As is this. Word is an awful piece of bloatware. Word was pinched from WordPerfect, and in typical MS fashion it was ruined.

...................

A little OT, but if Lionel was doing this with 365, where every edit, full stop, etc gets uploaded to the cloud as you go, then downloaded onto the screen (with the associated delay and the massive data usage) it would really do his head in.

Did mine in, using an up to date Mac with the correct MS program. I can't believe people put up with it. I didn't after a couple of days.

DL

Hello All,

I am pleased to write that Leeann's Total Knee Replacement - the calendars here have been notified as "TKR" for a while now - went really well. The self-adminstered pain relief was clicking over a bit last night though.

I also had some success with the frustrating document. I took a branch of Windsock's idea and my familiarity with NotePad to wash away all of Word's sins. I figured that the document is just like me at the moment - tired and worn out. After a couple of days and night's effort I had reached the stage where the main text was free from bugs. Within the main text the page numbering was also performing accurately. The ancillary stuff like Table of Contents and Appendices' page numbering - well that was just a mess.

I decided to move a couple of paragraphs in from the first page of text and highlighted it until the second-last page of text in the conclusion. I pressed copy. This action I hoped had formed a 'safe' section of the document. I then opened up a new Word document and hit 'Enter' numerous times to allow space for such things as the dreaded Title page. Then I clicked 'Paste'.

I then activated 'Insert - Page Number' It ran fine until the first orientation change from portrait to landscape. I found the Section Break and hit the radio button for 'Format Page Number' and "Continue from previous section'. It worked all the way through the next point and I successfully leaped frogged through changes in orientation until the last page was page numbered. I saved the document and exited from Word. A nervous wait later and I opened the document up again. Bingo the last page was numbered correctly - hallelujah! Yes, I did go back and picked up the missing paragraphs at the start and end of the document. They were washed in NotePad first before they were pasted in.

I then copied the series of appendices as a single copy and paste and ... the page numbering was lost. The go back one step key was pressed then I exited out without saving. Previously, the stuff I had copied did have some university shields show up on a couple of appendices headers. I did not use any headers in the appendices. So copying them probably wasn't my greatest idea. Figuring that I should go back in time - before the university template arrived on the scene - I went back to my very first copy of the appendices. I copied and pasted each single page one by one into the new document. After each 'Paste' I checked that page's numbering. A couple of times the numbering went into Roman Numerals. The go back one key was pressed and I existed out without saving. Yes, prior to this after every successful 'paste' I saved the document. It turns out that some of the pasted pages were copied from a multiple page example and the footer and other stuff had been picked up in-between that appendix's original pages. So I found the first copy then I copied and pasted the original as a number of single pages. Each time the item was pasted into my new document the page numbering stayed accurate.

The only issues are that some of the copied words - particularly the et al.'s lost their 'e' sometimes. Luckily this showed up with a red squiggly underline. Unfortunately, some of the reference citations from EndNote into the List of References were not picked up. The author's name appears on the page - but it is not an active link to the List of References. I just need to go over a half-page at a time and highlight it. The highlighting picks up active references as a darker block. If I can see a (2021) - a bracket with a year inside and it is does not have a dark block, then I have find it and go into EndNote and insert a new link. This task while laborious, lets me scrutinise each page closely and I have been able to pick up some issues of either too many or too few line spaces between paragraphs. Not that I have already performed this space check before numerous times - however, I must have still missed some as my referencing search has found.

The only fault that I cannot fix has to do with the List of Appendices. The second last thing I added to the new document was the Table of Contents. Prior to the Table being generated all the hyper-links when clicked on went to their appropriate appendix. After the Table of Contents was generated all these same links went to the Title page. Bugger!

From my earlier investigations about what other PhD theses' include in their Table of Contents I found that a minuscule number even featured a List of Appendices. The overwhelming majority just had the two last entries on their Table of Contents as: 'List of References' and 'Appendices'. Well I am now going baa - baa - baa and am following the mob. Goodbye, List of Appendices and absolutely no problems with any hyperlink at all and all the page numbering is totally accurate.

The find a missing reference link and dodgy line spacing every half-page search will be my last stroll through the tome before it heads off to my Principal Supervisors as the final "Track Changes" document. This once approved gets turned into a 'clean' copy - with no review comments anywhere in the document - which then gets sent off for final examination.

Well - I have a lot of half-pages to scrutinise . Bye for now!

Thank you every one who has voiced your support and offered me some technical tips. I very greatly appreciate it.

Kind regards
Lionel