Ensuring Consistent Lines on Each Page

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 8, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Ken has a problem when he uses master and subdocuments. He wants all of the pages in the printed document to have the same number of lines, which means he has to turn off widow and orphan control in the document. When he opens the master document, which in turn opens the subdocuments, the widow and orphan control is automatically enabled.

There are several things at play here. The primary thing you need to remember is that widow and orphan control is handled on a section level. In other words, in the same document you could have widow and orphan control enabled in one section and disabled in another. This is crucial, because master and subdocuments rely on sections extensively.

When you create a master document, each subdocument is placed within its own section. The settings in the section override any settings within the actual subdocument itself. Thus, it does no good to turn off widows and orphans in the subdocument files if widows and orphans are enabled in the master document.

The solution to this one problem is to make sure that widows and orphans are turned off everywhere. Individually load the subdocuments. (Don't load them through the master document, but open them individually.) Make sure that widows and orphans are turned off in each section in each subdocument. Then, open the master document. In each section in the master document, make sure that widows and orphans are turned off. If you are creating a new master document, make sure that widows and orphans are turned off before you start inserting subdocuments.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1401) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Getting Rid of Blue Squiggly Underlines

In an effort to make your writing better, Word uses "squiggly" underlines to mark things it thinks you may need to ...

Discover More

Stopping Excel from Converting UNC Paths to Mapped Drives

Did you know that if you create a link that uses a UNC path, Excel could rewrite that path to something entirely ...

Discover More

Checking for the Existence of a File

The data stored in a worksheet can often correspond to information external to that worksheet. For instance, you might ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Quickly Formatting Multiple Documents

Need to format a bunch of documents so they all look the same? If the documents use styles, doing the formatting is ...

Discover More

Changing Text Orientation

Word allows you to change the orientation of text contained within certain objects, such as AutoShapes, text boxes, and ...

Discover More

Formatting All Headings At Once

If you need to apply a common formatting change to all the headings in your document, a quick way to do it is to use the ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is six minus 3?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.