Know Thy Program

Yesterday was one of those maddening, frustrating days of fighting with my software just to get one little thing accomplished. At issue – formatting. I’m working on an insanely large document, formatting the entire mess into something worthy of publication. I was cruising along beautifully when suddenly, something just stopped working.

I’m making columns. In Word 2007, they’re simple. I’m also working with Styles, which I’ve made for this particular document. I have a routine – I combine new document with one I’d formatted last year, accept or reject changes, then do whatever little formatting is left over (not much beyond these columns and a few subheads). Like I said, things were working great. Then suddenly, they weren’t.

Maybe I was extra tired or maybe there was something wrong with my brain, but I couldn’t for the life of me get my columns to format without the remaining text being thrown onto a separate page. I don’t want it on a separate page. I want it to behave itself and do what it’s told. Just make this a column and forget that exists for now.

I tried everything. I opened a new document, copied the content, pasted, then formatted the way I wanted it. When I pasted it all back into the original – huh? I said “Keep Source Formatting”! I did NOT say “Just screw this up too so we can watch her hair turn even grayer.”

I removed all instances of previous section breaks. I added page breaks. Removed page breaks. Tried making just a small part of this into columns. Tried cussing. Tried crying. I even tried begging. Software is cold, man. Just cold.

Half an hour wasted on this one problem. I’d bypass that section and move on, but the remaining sections are doing the same thing so far. I checked help menus. Help isn’t so helpful. If I had time to sit through three 50-minute tutorial videos, I wouldn’t need to work. Where the hell is the quick, easy answer?

Then I got the brilliant idea to click on the section break. Up popped a margin, paper, and layout window. Great. Useless. Only… it wasn’t. There was the answer. I simply changed the “Section start next page” to “Section start continuous.” Aim it at the section. Click okay. Voila. Done.

Crisis averted, work resumed at a pace rapid, yet still accurate. I’m out of here this afternoon. We’re heading to the Highland Games in the Laurel Highlands (perfect spot for it beyond Scotland itself). I shall surround myself with the kilted. Enjoy the weekend!