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removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 05:38:09
by ngazidja
Hi all,

I have some documents created in Word that have been sent to me and several of them have page breaks mid-paragraph that I can't get rid of. They're not being forced by long footnotes, and all the "grouping" options are off. I can't get anything to sit in the space below the break, not even a four-line paragraph, which would presumbly exclude any sort of widow or orphan command. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Iain.

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 06:40:07
by Þorvarður
ngazidja wrote: 2020-02-10 05:38:09 I have some documents created in Word that have been sent to me and several of them have page breaks mid-paragraph that I can't get rid of.
Hi Iain,
Did you try this?
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1.png (50.75 KiB) Viewed 16720 times

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 06:48:28
by ngazidja
Yep, no breaks...

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 07:18:24
by Þorvarður
1) If those "page breaks" are not really page breaks, perhaps you could post a screenshot of one or two of them, so we can see how this looks like.

2) What happens if you cut a chunk of text before and after a "page break" and paste it again into Nisus? Often Nisus 'fixes' corrupt text when you paste it again into Nisus.

3) If that doesn't fix it, upload a part of a document here in the forum so we can take a look at it. If it contains confidential information then use the Redact macro. It scrambles the text irreversibly , but leaves all formatting in tact.

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 07:30:45
by Þorvarður
You could also try to use the Formatting Examiner palette. Select one of these breaks (or a few characters before and after it) and see what the Formatting Examiner says about the applied formatting.

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2.png (50.09 KiB) Viewed 16698 times

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 07:58:19
by Þorvarður
There are many ways to get rid of this. Here is one that has always worked for me.
Place the insertion point after the last character that precedes the phony page break. Then press the right arrow key. The insertion point will give you the impression that it didn't move when you hit the arrow key. This is an indication for invisible gremlins that are causing the trouble.

If this applies to your document, place the insertion point again after the last character, then press and hold down the Shift key, then hit the right arrow key (usually a number of times) until it finally has reached the phony page break. Now hit the Delete key. This should remove the unwanted characters.

If the invisible characters were removed, repeat once again, and instead of hitting the Delete key, execute "Copy to Find" from the Edit menu. Show the Find & Replace box and delete all instances of this crap from the whole document.

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 08:19:19
by ngazidja
The thing is, it's in different places each time I open the file (I don't save it, so every time I open the doc file I get a clean version). It happens after I change the margins (the original doc has something like 50mm margins), the font and the size. And there's the break, bottom of p.2.

Have a look.

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 10:10:05
by Þorvarður
In the Style Sheet View, select the "Footnote" note style. How many points is the Gutter Hight?

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 10:20:09
by Þorvarður
ngazidja wrote: 2020-02-10 08:19:19 The thing is, it's in different places each time I open the file (I don't save it, so every time I open the doc file I get a clean version).
Duplicate the original Word file and put it in a safe place. Then open the copy in Nisus and save it in Nisus. Work with this test copy.

Select everything in the document, copy and then paste into a new Nisus document. Did this change anything?

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 10:20:54
by ngazidja
3 pt.

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 10:23:28
by ngazidja
Þorvarður wrote: 2020-02-10 10:20:09
ngazidja wrote: 2020-02-10 08:19:19 The thing is, it's in different places each time I open the file (I don't save it, so every time I open the doc file I get a clean version).
Duplicate the original Word file and put it in a safe place. Then open the copy in Nisus and save it in Nisus. Work with this test copy.

Select everything in the document, copy and then paste into a new Nisus document. Did this change anything?
Yep, problem disappears. It's only in the original doc.

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 10:51:10
by Þorvarður
Yep, problem disappears.
I'm glad to hear that. Am I then right to assume that we have resolved the problem?

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 10:55:43
by waltzmn
This is only a wild thought, but I notice that your document is fairly long -- and has curious page numbering. The page number in your screen shot is 21, yet the bar at the bottom says you're on page 3 of 16. This raises two thoughts:

1. Long documents take time -- a lot of time -- to repaginate, and odd things happen during the repagination (I've been there!). Looking at the document in draft view might help; edit it and only go into page view once you've done your edits.

2. Are these the page numbers you want? That is, do you want the third page of your 16 page document to be page 21? If so, you must have set a page number, or it was set in Word. It might be worth trying that.

No promises that this will work. But I've experienced the same problem that you have, particularly with long documents (longer than this) with many footnotes. I ended up converting the footnotes to inline footnotes and/or endnotes, and editing solely in draft view except when I needed to update the index or the like. I don't like this solution, but it's better than Word. :-)

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 11:36:22
by martin
Based on the posted screenshots, the relevant factors are the document's footnotes and note styles. The large whitespace occurs because the footnote cannot fully fit at the bottom of the page.

For example, in the first screenshot you can see footnote reference #7 was pushed from the bottom of page 2 to the top of page 3. It's very likely footnote #7 can't fit on page 2, or at least can't fit with any chosen paragraph layout options (eg: keep paragraph together, keep paragraph with next, prevent widows & orphans, etc). You might need to adjust layout options for those paragraphs, or your document's Normal style.

Another solution: give Nisus Writer greater flexibility in splitting your footnotes between pages. If you open your document's Style Sheet and select the relevant Note style, look at the options under "multi-page threshold". If you lower the thresholds then Nisus Writer will be able to split your footnotes more easily, eg: change the thresholds to "0.25 in" and "2 lines", or something like that.

Re: removing page break mid-paragraph

Posted: 2020-02-10 11:49:05
by ngazidja
Hi Martin,

No, not the footnotes, they're only one line long, and in any case removing them altogether makes no difference. Baffling.

Iain.