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Smart & Easy Software Tips: Section Breaks & Formatting
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Smart & Easy Software Tips, Tricks & Techniques: Issue #36
Publisher: Dawn Bjork Buzbee mailto:Dawn@SoftwarePro.com
The Software Pro(R), Certified Microsoft Office Expert
http://www.SoftwarePro.com
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In This Issue: Section Breaks & Formatting in Microsoft Word
* Follow-up - Why Bother with Black Slides in PowerPoint?
* What is Document Formatting?
* What is a Section?
* Creating Section Breaks in Word
* Keeping Track of Sections
* Section Breaks for Multiple Columns
* Fixing Bad Section Breaks
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Why Bother with Black Slides in PowerPoint?
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After the last issue on improving your PowerPoint presentations by including black slides, I heard from several readers who didn't see how adding black slides would be helpful in their presentations. This isn't always the right choice for every PowerPoint presentation but the biggest reason to create a slide with a black background is when you want a planned, intentional transition or change within your presentation.
For a further explanation, click over to:
http://www.softwarepro.com/howto/ppt_black_slide.htm#why
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What is Document Formatting?
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In the world of Microsoft Word documents, page or document formatting includes your preferences for:
* Margins
* Page size and orientation
* Headers & Footers
* Page numbering
* Endnotes
* Footnotes
* Line numbering
* and other page formatting instructions
How it works: document or page formatting usually determines the appearance of the entire document regardless of the size of the document. Most choices are selected from the File > Page Setup menu command as well as from View > Header and Footer.
Word assumes that the document formatting choices are for the whole document, and so, page formatting can normally be changed from any location. Formatting problems and challenges can occur, however, if you need to change page formatting at some point in the document. For instance, if you try to set a document header starting at page 5, the header will change for the entire document. This can be especially frustrating for former WordPerfect users accustomed to a top to bottom, linear approach to document formatting.
Although it is not obvious or intuitive, the key in Microsoft Word is that, if you want page formatting to change within the document, the text needs to be divided into sections that allow for distinct formatting for each.
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What is a Section?
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In Word, a section is a way to break up parts of a document. You can also use it to impose formatting changes without a new page.
Why bother? Without section breaks that let you mix formats within a single document, you'd have to create separate documents and manually put them together.
Most documents only have one section that takes up the entire document. Section formatting is needed, however, when:
* Page/document formatting changes within the same document or
* Your document includes more than one type of column formatting
How it works: section formatting separates the document into multiple areas for individualized formatting. With section formatting, a document can easily be divided into separate pieces with distinct formatting such as a title page, report detail, appendixes, portrait vs. landscape layout, and other changes to the document structure.
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Creating Section Breaks in Word
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You may already be creating new page breaks with the Insert > Page Break option in Microsoft Word. (The keyboard shortcut to insert a page break is [Ctrl] + [Enter]).
Choose Insert > Break to select from other options:
SECTION BREAK TYPES
Continuous - This creates a new section in a document with no
change in pagination. The formatting for the new section will go into affect beginning with the next page.
Next - Creates a hard page break and a new section at the same time.
Even - Creates a new section and a hard page break with the page number for the first page after the break being the next even numbered page. Use this when the formatting requires new chapters or divisions to start on a certain side of a book.
Odd - Creates a new section and a hard page break with the page number for the first page after the break being the next odd numbered page. Use this when the formatting requires new chapters or divisions to start on a certain side of a book.
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Keeping Track of Sections
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To determine which document section you're in, look at the status bar at the bottom-left of the Word screen for an indicator such as "Sec 1". If the status bar doesn't display, activate it with Tools > Options, pick the View tab and check Status Bar.
As you scroll down the document, the section number will change as you switch between sections.
To see exactly where a section break is in a document, switch to Normal view (View > Normal). Any type of page or section break will show up as a dotted line across the page with text in the middle to tell you what type of break it is (Continuous, Page Break etc.). You will still want to do most of your work in a Word document under the Page Layout view.
Section navigation is easy. In addition to pages, lines, bookmarks etc., you can move between sections of a document with Edit > Go To or [F5] or [Ctrl] + G.
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How Section Formatting is Applied
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One of the oddities of section formatting is that a section break "stores" the formatting for the text that precedes the section break. Be careful, then, because if you delete a section break, the text above the section break "inherits" the formatting of the text below it.
You can also apply section formatting to specific parts of a document if you highlight the text first and then make changes under File > Page Setup.
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Section Breaks for Multiple Columns
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You can also add a multi-column element in the middle of a single column document. To do this, highlight the text that you want to apply multiple columns to. Then, change the column formatting of the new section under Format > Columns. Next, choose the column formatting you want and make sure the "Applied to" is set to "Selected Text."
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Fixing Bad Section Breaks
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If your document is behaving strangely, especially with weird page breaks or formatting, it's worth looking at the page or section breaks in the Normal view. Sometimes just removing the excess section breaks will fix the problems. You can remove a section break by selecting it and deleting it, just like any other element in a document.
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Working with and mastering section breaks in Microsoft Word will give you greater control over the formatting in your documents.
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Please pass this along to others who may appreciate it!
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