The inability to actually edit or modify AutoText entries (as you can edit a
macro or modify a style) is a nuisance. What you have to do is create a new
entry and save it under the same name, which I agree is less than intuitive.
That's something that, on the face of it, seems like it would be a good
feature, but then when you consider the huge variety of content that
AutoText entries can contain (not just plain text, but graphics, fields,
etc.), it makes more sense to use the full panoply of Word's editing tools
and then save the entry.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site:
http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"Jim B" wrote in message
...
Suzanne, I'm convinced.
I had no idea that I could modify the AutoText entries that come with
Word.
(There is no menu item that says Autotext/Edit, and I had not searched the
help for that task.) Thank you very much.
"Oh. Never Mind."
-Gilda Radner as Emily Litella
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
If you want Page X of Y to use SectionPages instead of NumPages, you can
certainly change it (create a new AutoText entry and save it as "Page X
of
Y"), or you could create a new AutoText entry using SectionPages and
call
it, say, Page X of Z. Word's major strength is not in its ability to be
all
things to all people but in its customizability for the way *you* want
it to
work.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"Jim B" wrote in message
...
Suzanne, thank you for your prompt reply.
As you wrote, it would be absurd to suggest that the NumPages field to
be
equal to SectionPages. They are different variables for different
purposes,
both useful.
Let me try to state my suggestion more clearly.
In the floating "Header and Footer" menu that is visible while editing
headers and footers, the last choice on the menu is "Page X of Y".
My
suggestion relates only to the implementation of that menu choice.
When that Autotext item is chosen, Word inserts "Page { PAGE } of
{NUMPAGES}" into the current section's header or footer. My
suggestion
is
to change the text expansion to "Page { PAGE } of { SECTIONPAGES }".
Of course, no autotext will be right in all situations. The current
implementation {NumPages} satisfies users who do not restart
numbering at
the beginning of sections. In documents like mine that restart the
page
numbers at the beginning of a section, {SectionPages} is more
appropriate.
In a complex document, headers and footers are defined in Word for
each
section. Since you know that the user is in the middle of editing a
section
header or footer when the autotext is available on the menu, it may be
more
natural for Word to insert the section's page count than the
document's
length.
In a document without section breaks, the two implementations produce
identical results. I would never have thought of your example, but
when a
multi-section chapter restarts numbering, neither field will work.
-Jim
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
No, the NumPages field is the number of pages; it would be absurd
for it
to
be anything else. In your case, SectionPages was the correct field
to
use.
In cases where a multi-section chapter restarts numbering (which is
continuous throughout the chapter), neither field will work, and a
different
workaround will be required, but having NumPages equal SectionPages
wouldn't
help there, either.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"Jim B" Jim wrote in message
...
The following is a suggestion for Microsoft's next iteration of
Word.
I just created a document consisting of three sections. I
restarted
page
numbering at 1 in each section. I used the "Page x of y" footer.
Now section 1 has the footers Page 1 of 7, Page 2 of 7. Then
section
2
has
pages numbered Page 1 of 7, Page 2 of 7. Section 3 has pages
labeled
Page
1
of 7, Page 2 of 7, Page 3 of 7.
I think the last page of each section should always have the same
page
number as the page count. (For example, page 2 of 2, page 3 of
3.)
It took a long time for me to figure out how to solved the
problem: I
replaced the "y" field with the field code {sectionpages} in the
footer.
Would it be a good idea for Microsoft to change the "Page x of y"
autotext
to default to this?
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