Word template: section header/footer "fun"

["Alex Silbajoris" <alsilba -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

I'm working with a template I've created in Word, and I spotted a problem 
that may have been puzzling some of you, as well.

This template is based on normal.dot, which has a center tab in its footer.  
I've changed the headers and footers in the template, but I noticed that 
some of the documents created from it had some bad headers and footers.

The problem seems to spring from section breaks.  I have a small section 
containing two columns, and in the unpopulated template this section happens 
to fall entirely on an even page.  So when I changed the headers and footers 
in the template, I never saw headers and footers for "odd page section 2."

The funny thing about blind spots is the way you don't see them...

So as the documents were made from the template, some of them filled section 
2 onto an odd page.  And then, joy of joys, some default settings from 
normal.dot manifested themselves in the form of bad tab settings and the 
ever-beloved "same as previous" feature.

I think I found the work-around:  I added extra page breaks into the 
template, fixed all the headers and footers, saved, removed the extra 
breaks, and saved again.  I _think_ this has removed the normal.dot 
settings, even though the unpopulated template still has no odd page in 
section 2.  Today I'm experimenting with the revisions to see if the fix 
works, and the headers/footers are correct.

BTW unless I put a seemingly-useless page break in the template, I cannot 
populate all the headers and footers until the body of the document has 
enough content to populate odd and even pages in all sections.

Ah, working with Word ... sometimes I miss my groundskeeping days *G*.

- A

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