Bizarre MS Word Indexing Problem

[Linda Castellani <linda -at- GRIC -dot- COM>]

I am tearing what's left of my hair out over a bizarre problem I am having
with Word.

Before I continue, I beg of you, please refrain from attacking Word or from
attacking me because I use it.

Today I became aware that the index in a document that had just been
distributed in pdf did not match the page numbers.  I checked the MSWord
file against the pdf file and I discovered that the MSWord file is 107
pages long.  The pdf version is 105 pages long.  The index in the MSWord
file matches the page numbers in that file, the index in the pdf version is
2 pages off.

Then I discovered that the page numbers in the index in the printed version
of the same document was even further off.   I assumed, with much beating
of breast and gnashing of teeth, that I had simply forgotten to regenerate
the index after I added blank pages throughout the document to make certain
pages fall on the right instead of on the left. But now I wonder.

The solution seemed to be to regenerate the index and send out a corrected
one.  Only problem is, when I did so, the page numbers in the
newly-generated index in the MSWord file did not match the page numbers in
the printed version.

So, I thought that I'd have to enter the page numbers manually, and asked
MSWord to print out pages 114-117 of my document, which are the pages that
the index appears to be on, based on the status bar in the MSWord window
(which has always been absolutely accurate in the past.)  But no, what it
printed was the last page of the index (which I show as page 117, but which
it numbered as 114), and the two blank pages that follow it, which I see as
pages 118 and 119, but which it numbered as 115 and 116.  And, what's odd
about that, is that the document I sent to the printer *was* 116 pages, not
119 pages.

I am absolutely flummoxed.  Does anybody know what is going on with this
strange page numbering business and how to fix it?  It's the biggest
problem I've encountered since The Big Red X fiasco.   (I've searched the
Techwr-l archives and Microsoft's site, but didn't find anything, and our
archives kept saying there was a problem, which is what it always says.)


==========================
Obligatory bad haiku:

Ah, reality
sets in too soon.  Alarm rings:
Monday morning! ARGH!

Linda Castellani
Technical Writer
GRIC Communications, Inc.
1421 McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, CA   95035

408.965.1169
408.955.1968 - fax

linda -at- gric -dot- com
<http://www.gric.com>


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=