Custom Unique Footers in word 2000

ging18 · 01-02-2009, 06:07 AM

Hello All

Does anyone know an easy way to create custom footers on a page within a word document.

I have a number of large word files, each 300 – 500 pages long.

Each page requires a footer stating the
- The section of the document
- The page number within the section
- The issue number of the page.

Each time a change is made to a page within the document the issue number for the page is updated. When the document is released the users can print the pages with the latest issue number to save printing the entire document.

Due to this each page can potentially have a unique footer. As far as I am aware the standard Word footers do not allow you to handle completely different headers and footers on each page.

The current solution is to have a normal word table at the bottom of each page that represents the footer. This allows the unique footers but add a large overhead in reformatting the documents to ensure that each page has the footer in the correct place (adding text frequently pushes the tables onto the next page) and that the details are correct (each footer has to be manually updated).

A number of solutions have been considered.
- Use section breaks before and after the footers so they can be unique – This would work but its more effort adding all the section breaks in and when you do it causes word to corrupt the document.

- Use a different version of word – its been suggested that the latest version of word might help but unfortunately only Word 2000 is available

- Use a different word processing package – again would be nice but can only use Word 2000

- Some sort of Macro to create the footers – This could work as macros are used to find and print the latest issues pages and to create an Index based on the footer issues but I’ve been unable to identify which pages have changed since the last save and footers need to be added before the page is populated or the whole document would need to be repeatedly reformatted.

- Not printing the document thus removing the need for issued pages – I’d love to go for this option but people just don’t like change.

So the question is “Is there anyway of creating unique footers on every page of a word document?”

Thanks for any help

**macropod** · 01-03-2009, 02:49 AM

Hi,

“Is there anyway of creating unique footers on every page of a word document?”

Yes, via the use of Section breaks but, frankly, this would be impractical - every time you edit the document, there's a risk that the page boundaries will change. And then there's the added complication that something as simple as a change of printer (or even just a change to the print driver or its settings) can change the page boundaries.

I've worked in an organisation where staff needed to know what had been changed in 'editions' of a document - which was published in print and via pdf. My solution was to use Word's 'track changes' feature for any significant changes (not changes in grammar/spelling). The updated editions were released periodically, with the release date on all page footers. The tracked additions were shown in red with the track-changes bar in the margin - deletions were hidden except for the track-changes bar in the margin. Then, once an edition had been published, all the changes for that edition were 'accepted' so that only the changes between that and the next edition would show up when it was released.

ging18 · 01-04-2009, 11:19 AM

Thanks for your response.

The process of using “Tracking Changes” in word is what we use to identify all the changes. When the updated document is released all the changes are accepted and new changes are recorded again for the next issue.

This part works fine, it’s just the laborious task of updating each of the individual issue numbers for each of the changed pages that is a problem.

Unfortunately the process for changing a process within my organisation is so difficult and people are so set in there ways that all the noticeable improvements (going web based, using a different word processing package or just not printing) are taking forever to force through.

That’s why I’m after a way to improve the creation of the documents in the current word based format. The footer issue being the most time consuming.

The end result needs to be a Word file that has some sort footer that contains the issue number for each page. This could be different for every page. Creating the footer can be done by any means as long as the final printed output looks the same. If there is a way to use track changes and a macro to automatically update the issue number it could work, but so far I have not been able to find a way to programmatically handle the track changes to find page number of a changed page.

**macropod** · 01-04-2009, 06:32 PM

Hi,

It really doesn't make sense to try to output the 'change' dates on just the pages that have been changed. If, for example, you delete a page and a half of text in the middle of the document, and that results in all subsequent paragraph numbers changing, do count all those changed paragraph numbers as changes (eg they can have significant implications for cross-references) and do you re-flow the document or just leave the remainder of the page blank? And what about if you add a page and a half of text in the middle of the document? If you re-flow the document, then how far back do you go in trying to track which parts of what pages were edited when? In reality, the whole document has changed - not just the edited pages, so the whole document should have the current version ID, not just the edited pages.

Unless you want to insert Section breaks to delimit each & every set of edited pages from the remainder of the document, then re-structure these every time the document is edited, there's no way to do what you want. You could use a macro to automatically insert & delete the Section breaks, but that becomes problematic when a decision has to be made as to which footer dates from previous editions should be kept/deleted.

Still, if you're wedded to the current approach, here's a macro to tell you which pages have tracked changes on them:

Code:

Sub GetChangedPages()
Dim i As Integer
Dim MyRange As Range
With ActiveDocument
Set MyRange = .Range(0, 0)
  For i = 1 To .Range.Information(wdActiveEndPageNumber)
    Set MyRange = MyRange.GoTo(What:=wdGoToPage, Name:=i)
    Set MyRange = MyRange.GoTo(What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:="\page")
    If MyRange.Revisions.Count > 0 Then MsgBox "Page " & i & " has " & MyRange.Revisions.Count & " tracked changes."
  Next
End With
End Sub

**gistek** · 01-05-2009, 06:12 AM

Question:
Would it be possible to get the issue number from a file using the Mail Merge feature? This would mean entering the issue number in a separate file, but you wouldn't have to enter it in each footer.

Once the revisions are issued, do a print to PDF and only use the Word file(s) to maintain / update the master document.

ging18 · 01-05-2009, 12:14 PM

Thanks again for your response

As it sounds ,the creation and maintenance of the document is ridiculous and flawed in a number of areas, each of which I’m trying to prompt improvement. Unfortunately the suggestions are usually met by people who agree that they make sense but won’t back the change. Another one of my favourite issues is that a good third of the document is a straight copy and paste from the last document written, this is quite often 100 pages which could be referenced if it was in a separate document but its always “No, its done this way…”

Anyway, the maintaining of the document post first issue is also great fun.

The text is broken in Chapters and each page is manually numbered so chapter 5 might have pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. If you add additional information to page 6 and it runs onto page 7 that is ok as chapter 6 page 7 would be followed by chapter 7 page 1. If text is deleted from a page the text following is forced to stay in the same position so that it does not change from the previous issue of the page. For example if you delete half of page 4 the text on page 5 would remain on page 5. If a whole page of text is deleted then it is replace with “This page is intentionally blank” and following pages remain the same. Now my favourite amendment is when additional text cannot be fitted on the existing page, for example new text on page 2 requires wrapping onto page 3. As page 3 cannot be changed without up issuing page 3 and then possibly 4 etc, an “Alpha” page is added so the document goes pages 1, 2, 2A, 2B, 3 etc. There have been cases where there are multiple Alpha pages for multiple pages.

Fortunately (I think) most of the changes don’t effect formats across pages so single page updates can be done and only the page Issue number needs to changed, which brings me to where I am.

The more I explain the documents construction the more it amazes me that it’s survived this long being created how it is but it does explain why so many people have been in this role.

Thanks for the code, I’ll give that at try at work to see if that can help the issue. (Again being hindered by company IT, all forums and useful help sites are blocked so I have to work from home on the big problems)

Thanks again.

01-02-2009, 06:07 AM	#1 (permalink)
ging18 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 7 OS: XP Pro	Custom Unique Footers in word 2000 Hello All Does anyone know an easy way to create custom footers on a page within a word document. I have a number of large word files, each 300 – 500 pages long. Each page requires a footer stating the - The section of the document - The page number within the section - The issue number of the page. Each time a change is made to a page within the document the issue number for the page is updated. When the document is released the users can print the pages with the latest issue number to save printing the entire document. Due to this each page can potentially have a unique footer. As far as I am aware the standard Word footers do not allow you to handle completely different headers and footers on each page. The current solution is to have a normal word table at the bottom of each page that represents the footer. This allows the unique footers but add a large overhead in reformatting the documents to ensure that each page has the footer in the correct place (adding text frequently pushes the tables onto the next page) and that the details are correct (each footer has to be manually updated). A number of solutions have been considered. - Use section breaks before and after the footers so they can be unique – This would work but its more effort adding all the section breaks in and when you do it causes word to corrupt the document. - Use a different version of word – its been suggested that the latest version of word might help but unfortunately only Word 2000 is available - Use a different word processing package – again would be nice but can only use Word 2000 - Some sort of Macro to create the footers – This could work as macros are used to find and print the latest issues pages and to create an Index based on the footer issues but I’ve been unable to identify which pages have changed since the last save and footers need to be added before the page is populated or the whole document would need to be repeatedly reformatted. - Not printing the document thus removing the need for issued pages – I’d love to go for this option but people just don’t like change. So the question is “Is there anyway of creating unique footers on every page of a word document?” Thanks for any help

01-03-2009, 02:49 AM	#2 (permalink)
macropod TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Australia Posts: 561 OS: Vista	Re: Custom Unique Footers in word 2000 Hi, “Is there anyway of creating unique footers on every page of a word document?” Yes, via the use of Section breaks but, frankly, this would be impractical - every time you edit the document, there's a risk that the page boundaries will change. And then there's the added complication that something as simple as a change of printer (or even just a change to the print driver or its settings) can change the page boundaries. I've worked in an organisation where staff needed to know what had been changed in 'editions' of a document - which was published in print and via pdf. My solution was to use Word's 'track changes' feature for any significant changes (not changes in grammar/spelling). The updated editions were released periodically, with the release date on all page footers. The tracked additions were shown in red with the track-changes bar in the margin - deletions were hidden except for the track-changes bar in the margin. Then, once an edition had been published, all the changes for that edition were 'accepted' so that only the changes between that and the next edition would show up when it was released. __________________ Cheers macropod (MS MVP -Word)

01-04-2009, 11:19 AM	#3 (permalink)
ging18 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 7 OS: XP Pro	Re: Custom Unique Footers in word 2000 Thanks for your response. The process of using “Tracking Changes” in word is what we use to identify all the changes. When the updated document is released all the changes are accepted and new changes are recorded again for the next issue. This part works fine, it’s just the laborious task of updating each of the individual issue numbers for each of the changed pages that is a problem. Unfortunately the process for changing a process within my organisation is so difficult and people are so set in there ways that all the noticeable improvements (going web based, using a different word processing package or just not printing) are taking forever to force through. That’s why I’m after a way to improve the creation of the documents in the current word based format. The footer issue being the most time consuming. The end result needs to be a Word file that has some sort footer that contains the issue number for each page. This could be different for every page. Creating the footer can be done by any means as long as the final printed output looks the same. If there is a way to use track changes and a macro to automatically update the issue number it could work, but so far I have not been able to find a way to programmatically handle the track changes to find page number of a changed page.

01-04-2009, 06:32 PM	#4 (permalink)
macropod TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Australia Posts: 561 OS: Vista	Re: Custom Unique Footers in word 2000 Hi, It really doesn't make sense to try to output the 'change' dates on just the pages that have been changed. If, for example, you delete a page and a half of text in the middle of the document, and that results in all subsequent paragraph numbers changing, do count all those changed paragraph numbers as changes (eg they can have significant implications for cross-references) and do you re-flow the document or just leave the remainder of the page blank? And what about if you add a page and a half of text in the middle of the document? If you re-flow the document, then how far back do you go in trying to track which parts of what pages were edited when? In reality, the whole document has changed - not just the edited pages, so the whole document should have the current version ID, not just the edited pages. Unless you want to insert Section breaks to delimit each & every set of edited pages from the remainder of the document, then re-structure these every time the document is edited, there's no way to do what you want. You could use a macro to automatically insert & delete the Section breaks, but that becomes problematic when a decision has to be made as to which footer dates from previous editions should be kept/deleted. Still, if you're wedded to the current approach, here's a macro to tell you which pages have tracked changes on them: Code: Sub GetChangedPages() Dim i As Integer Dim MyRange As Range With ActiveDocument Set MyRange = .Range(0, 0) For i = 1 To .Range.Information(wdActiveEndPageNumber) Set MyRange = MyRange.GoTo(What:=wdGoToPage, Name:=i) Set MyRange = MyRange.GoTo(What:=wdGoToBookmark, Name:="\page") If MyRange.Revisions.Count > 0 Then MsgBox "Page " & i & " has " & MyRange.Revisions.Count & " tracked changes." Next End With End Sub __________________ Cheers macropod (MS MVP -Word)

01-05-2009, 06:12 AM	#5 (permalink)
gistek Folding Along Join Date: May 2007 Location: PA, USA Posts: 1,904 OS: Bobbi=xp, sp3 Muse=Vista Home Premium	Re: Custom Unique Footers in word 2000 Question: Would it be possible to get the issue number from a file using the Mail Merge feature? This would mean entering the issue number in a separate file, but you wouldn't have to enter it in each footer. Once the revisions are issued, do a print to PDF and only use the Word file(s) to maintain / update the master document. __________________ I am not a computer professional, My advice comes from personal experience and/or friends who are computer professionals. Learn By Doing Un-versity Interested in Search and Rescue? Check out the Civil Air Patrol. Come Fold with us. TSF Folding@Home Team

01-05-2009, 12:14 PM	#6 (permalink)
ging18 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 7 OS: XP Pro	Re: Custom Unique Footers in word 2000 Thanks again for your response As it sounds ,the creation and maintenance of the document is ridiculous and flawed in a number of areas, each of which I’m trying to prompt improvement. Unfortunately the suggestions are usually met by people who agree that they make sense but won’t back the change. Another one of my favourite issues is that a good third of the document is a straight copy and paste from the last document written, this is quite often 100 pages which could be referenced if it was in a separate document but its always “No, its done this way…” Anyway, the maintaining of the document post first issue is also great fun. The text is broken in Chapters and each page is manually numbered so chapter 5 might have pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. If you add additional information to page 6 and it runs onto page 7 that is ok as chapter 6 page 7 would be followed by chapter 7 page 1. If text is deleted from a page the text following is forced to stay in the same position so that it does not change from the previous issue of the page. For example if you delete half of page 4 the text on page 5 would remain on page 5. If a whole page of text is deleted then it is replace with “This page is intentionally blank” and following pages remain the same. Now my favourite amendment is when additional text cannot be fitted on the existing page, for example new text on page 2 requires wrapping onto page 3. As page 3 cannot be changed without up issuing page 3 and then possibly 4 etc, an “Alpha” page is added so the document goes pages 1, 2, 2A, 2B, 3 etc. There have been cases where there are multiple Alpha pages for multiple pages. Fortunately (I think) most of the changes don’t effect formats across pages so single page updates can be done and only the page Issue number needs to changed, which brings me to where I am. The more I explain the documents construction the more it amazes me that it’s survived this long being created how it is but it does explain why so many people have been in this role. Thanks for the code, I’ll give that at try at work to see if that can help the issue. (Again being hindered by company IT, all forums and useful help sites are blocked so I have to work from home on the big problems) Thanks again.