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What's Wrong with My Document?

 Are you one of the unfortunate folks whose Word 97/2000 documents are misbehaving? Do you find yourself muttering, "Why is Word ACTING like this?" While our phone calls and emails cover virtually every aspect of document misbehavior, certain themes have emerged. Whether your documents were converted from some other application, or have been tortured in native Word, you're probably having trouble with one or all of the following: 

• Comparing documents (the Comparison process crashes before it is finished, or upon opening the result, or the results are inaccurate)
• Automatic paragraph numbering (numbers don't increment properly, indents are getting lost)
• Headers and footers (won't print properly, won't accept global changes, can't be edited)
• Footnotes (footnote references appear on a different page from the actual footnote)
• Tables (borders or shading don't draw properly)
• Fonts and symbols (sections or substructures of the document don't contain the appropriate font or point size, special symbols display or read as empty boxes) 

The cry we hear is, "I need to clean up this document so I can work on it/compare it/send it to the client. Where can I look to discover the problem? How can I fix what's wrong?" Thankfully, there are several easy, consistent ways that Word users can track down and repair document problems. 

The Word Object Model

The first hurdle is to come to grips with the realization that there's almost always more than one problem in a problem document, and that your job is to find (and fix!) them all. Breaking the task into categories helps. A good method is to work within the framework of Word's "object model." Word is a collection of different objects working together to create the document's structure. In general, the problems involve one or more of the following topics:

• The Document itself
• The properties of a particular Section
• Paragraph formatting, either directly applied or linked to a style
• The Footnotes collection
• A Field Code
• A Style definition/application
• Application of Outline Numbering 

You need to master a different mindset to troubleshoot Word documents. This is because almost every other word processor was based on in-line formatting codes, which the printer (and to a lesser extent, the screen display) would read sequentially, from left to right, top to bottom. WordPerfect made these codes visible through the mechanism of Reveal Codes, and the user (and the printer and the screen) could see the instructions interspersed throughout the text (e.g., [Bold On]Conclusion[Bold Off]).

Word manages formatting and layout through something called the Object Model, whereby commands that determine how text appears and behaves are embedded within the appropriate Word object (in Word, they are said to be the object's properties). This way, if a paragraph has double-spacing associated with it, then Word looks first to the paragraph marker at the end of a given paragraph, and reads all of the properties associated with that paragraph marker (of which double-spacing is just one). There are no "codes" to be revealed, because the instructions don't exist in a sequential order in a particular location on the page. Instead, they are embedded within the appropriate object.

Below is a discussion of a number of Word objects, along with potential problems that may arise in connection with them. At the end of this document is a table which briefly lists each object, along with potential problems and troubleshooting techniques.

The Document Object

The most important object in Word is the document itself-the file "container." Items attached to the document object that are vital to the clean-up task are:

• Compatibility Options (what type of document Word thinks it is)
• The Normal style (how "generic" text looks and acts)
• The Style collection (what purpose different paragraphs have within the document [i.e., whether they're body text, headings, titles, and so on])

Problems That Might Exist With the Document Object

• Compatibility Options. Tools > Options > Compatibility. The compatibility options tell you whether Word is attempting to act like some other word processing application, or an earlier version of itself. If your problem file has compatibility options of, say, WordPerfect 6.x, this means Word is trying to act the way it thinks WordPerfect would act as you work on the document. (This is a little like asking Tiger Woods to do Sammy Sosa's job-they're both great athletes, but they don't imitate each other too well.) A document's compatibility options always should be set to whatever version of Word you're working in. (Although options set to "custom" could also be okay if your firm uses a third-party application for templates or automatic paragraph numbering, for example.)
• Normal style description. Format > Style. Choose the Normal style in the style list and check its definition. It should describe generic text for your document, (i.e., single spaced, left justified, no indents, no space after, body text). Also, it should describe the default font (i.e., Times New Roman, 12 pt)-which should always be a True Type font, and the language of the country in which the document will "reside" (i.e., English (United States) or English (United Kingdom). Any other settings should be eliminated from the Normal style description.
• Condition of the Style list. Format > Style. Are your firm's styles listed? Are there any other styles? What is their description? If possible, try to ensure that most (if not all) styles are based on the normal style. Styles based on anything other than normal can cause problems with comparing documents, as well as problems with formatting consistency. Use the Style Organizer to add styles to or remove styles from any document.
• Did the document come from WordPerfect? Format > Style. Check for tell-tale signs that the document has been edited in WordPerfect and brought into Word using its native converter. It is common to see "(FE)" in a style definition. Sometimes you'll see "English (United States), (Other) English (United States)." Styles containing these attributes should be removed from the document using the style organizer, then re-created (be sure to note the style's description before you delete it, so it can be re-created correctly).
• Style Definitions. Format > Style. Does the style list contain the types of styles you'll need for this document? Do the styles' descriptions match the shapes of the paragraphs to which you wish to apply them? Styles give paragraphs "purpose." For example, the purpose of body text is to be descriptive, and the purpose of numbered text is to put items in sequence. If a document's body text paragraphs all have a 1" first line indent, but none of the body text styles do, then you won't be able to structure the document properly, and clean up will be much more difficult and time-consuming

The Section Object

To make matters slightly more complicated, there are three distinct types of sections: Next page, Continuous, and Odd/Even-all of which get inserted through section breaks. Legal documents in Word tend to focus on two of them: Next Page and Continuous.

Next Page section breaks are inserted where the format change you're introducing logically starts on a new page. These are commonly used to introduce page layout and header/footer commands such as page margins, orientation, or new headers and footers.

Continuous section breaks are used when you want to introduce section-related formatting in the middle of an existing page (most commonly, newspaper-style columns or line numbering). In general, legal documents contain only Next Page breaks, and if they contain Continuous breaks they are clearly enabling some kind of page layout formatting that needs to begin in the middle of the page. 

Often, however, Continuous breaks work their way into a Word document by means of a poor conversion from some other application (Word, in converting the document, is trying to perform some kind of page formatting that would be handled entirely differently if the document were created originally in Word).

There are several ways to check whether sections are a problems in the document. Generally speaking, short documents tend not to have many sections. Move to the end of the document and make a quick check of the status bar-if a 6 page document contains 8 sections, you can be pretty sure most of them are unneeded and should be checked. Use the Browse Object to move to each section break, and examine that position in the document to determine whether the break is performing a useful task. If not, delete it. (Be aware, however, that when you delete a section break, Word applies all of the Section properties of the latter section - i.e., the one after the break you're deleting - and applies it to the previous section ...just the opposite of what you might expect it to do.) 

Problems That Might Exist in a Section

• Too many/wrong kind of Section breaks
• "Hidden" headers and footers containing bad field codes (i.e., Different First Page chosen with no second page existing in section)
• "Bad stuff" in the header and/or footer of a particular section (see below) 

A Few Words About Headers and Footers

• Headers and footers should never have regular paragraph styles (like Normal or Body Text) applied to them. Because headers and footers have a specific purpose in a document, headers should use Header style, and footers, the Footer style. (However, it's okay to apply character formats to header or footer text [DocID for example].)
• Page numbering should always be created from the Header and Footer Toolbar inside a header or a footer. It should never be created using Insert > Page Numbers which puts the page number in a frame, causing potential compare problems, as well as making the number difficult to manipulate.
• The "primary" header or footer for a particular section may be "hidden" when the "Different First Page" option is chosen under Page Layout for that section, but that section doesn't happen to contain a second page. This means that the primary header or footer (as opposed to the "First Page" header or footer) still exists within the document, it just isn't visible. If this primary header or footer is carried over from a previous section, and if that previous section's primary header or footer contained a bad field code or questionable parameters, those attributes will be inherited by the new header or footer, even if it is hidden. Sometimes the only way to clear all bad attributes out of your document's header and footer population (i.e., document-wide) is to remove all section breaks from a document, clear out any bad code, and re-build your headers and footers (and sections) from scratch.
• Headers and footers should never have the same Distance From Edge as the Top or Bottom margin of the document-a state of events which always happens when a WordPerfect document is brought into Word using Word's native conversion. This means that Word is trying to place your header or footer in exactly the same spot where you page begins or ends. Can text from two different places occupy exactly the same physical space? Only if it's in a Star Trek transporter beam! Word sets the Top and Bottom margins at 1" and both the header and the footer margin at .5"-a good default choice. 

The Paragraph Object 

Problems You Might Encounter in the Paragraph Object

No style applied where one would logically belong.

An appropriate style applied, but with contrary direct formatting applied on top.

A style applied with unwanted attributes (e.g., "no proofing," "condensed font").

Numbering of some kind applied directly (i.e., through Format > Bullets & Numbering) instead of applied through a style. 

If a paragraph's style is the problem, then modifying the style or creating and applying a different one will generally take care of the problem. Check the style's description and note whether the style is based on Normal, whether the style is appropriate for the paragraph it's applied to (we've seen heading styles applied to obvious body text paragraphs), and whether there is direct formatting applied on top of the style.

Check the style area next to a typical body text paragraph. Is the style name "Normal?" If it is, you know that any paragraph formatting the text contains was directly applied (someone selected the text and formatted it, rather than applying a style). Usually, you'll apply formatting directly to text only when you want that piece of text to be different from (contrary to) the typical paragraph style. Think of direct formatting they way you would hot sauce on your dinner-a little goes a long way.

Formatting an entire document directly is hard on it. Say you select all the text in a document and apply full justification, and make it all double-spaced. Because you've done it directly, it's as if you've turned justification and double-spacing on and off for every paragraph in the document. Now imagine selecting the entire document and changing the size to 11 points-you've turned a font size code on and off for every character! It's easy to see how indiscriminate direct formatting adds enormous size and complexity to a document.

Consistent formatting such as this should be done with styles. Every Word document can contain approximately 30,000 styles! Using styles to format text is a good thing-remember, not only do styles provide consistent formatting, even more important, they give the paragraph purpose, and the document, structure. Word provides you with a very simple method for determining which properties, or attributes, are embedded in any given paragraph. Just choose Help> What's This?, or press Shift+F1. The pointer changes to a pointer with a question mark. Click anywhere in any paragraph, and a message box spells out any style and direct formatting which is applied to the paragraph. Your goal is to create a document in which most of the paragraphs contain an appropriate paragraph style, with little or no directly applied formatting on top.

It is important to notice that Word divides the information shown in the What's This? message box into two broad categories (Paragraph and Font) and two sub-categories (direct formatting and style formatting). This is exactly the way Word processes the information as well. Be aware that some direct formatting will not disappear with the application of a style-instead you'll need to remove it manually (or with Find and Replace). Initial tabs and extra paragraph marks between paragraphs are two critical examples. 

The Character Object

In Word's object hierarchy, the Character object is fairly low on the list. In general, Word will first look to the Document, then the Section, then individual Paragraphs (and their associated Styles), and then individual characters. There are times when direct character formatting is desirable (e.g., you want to bold or underline particular words), but in general your characters should take on the formatting defined in their applied paragraph style (e.g., Body Text, Normal, etc.). 

Problems You Might Encounter in the Character Object

Watch for printer fonts, either in style definitions or directly applied to text. These have names like Tms Rmn, CG Times, and Courier. They should be replaced with their True Type counterparts, Times New Roman and Courier New.

If you're having problems with fonts, check what the style definition is, and what style it is based on. A document's font should be defined in the "Normal" style, and all styles should be based on Normal. This way, every paragraph will have the same font.

Documents created in WordPerfect and brought into Word using its native conversion often still contain "WP Typographic Symbols." These can be dangerous because they are difficult to see-until you change the document's font. Then, you'll often find those symbols have changed into empty squares: § becomes ?. To solve this problem, check your document closely. Select any symbols (and this includes quote marks) that look a bit "strange." If the Font Box on the toolbar displays "WP Typographic Symbol," you must to replace the symbol with the correct Word equivalent (under Insert > Symbol). 

Footnotes

Much evil can occur in a footnote. The problem we encounter most often? "Why is the footnote reference on page 2, and the footnote itself on page 3?" This occurs most often when formatting related to vertical spacing has been applied directly (by selecting text and applying formats). When working with footnotes, styles are a must. Check for the following:

• The footnote style should be Footnote Text or Footnote Text More.
• The footnote should not contain extraneous paragraph marks-space between footnotes should be accomplished with "space after" in the footnote style.
• There should be as little directly applied vertical spacing as possible-in both the footnote and the document text itself. (Remember, vertical spacing includes formatting such as line spacing, space after paragraphs, page centering, even point size changes.) Any of these types of formats should be created via the applied style.

Problems You Might Encounter in the Footnote Object

• The footnote appears on a different page from the footnote reference.
•  Footnotes aren't inheriting appropriate formatting because either they don't have Footnote Text style applied to them, they have additional direct formatting, or they contain blank paragraph markers.
•  A footnote refuses to disappear even after its reference is deleted.

Tables

Tables are one of Word 97/2000's most powerful features, and using tables to give structure to text can make formatting easier and sorting information more efficient. They are generally preferable to using tabs to separate text columns, as they allow phrases to wrap and give you the ability to set different alignments easily. In poorly-created Word documents, however, the presence of tables can make your clean-up headaches worse. 

Problems You Might Encounter in the Table Object

• Borders and Shading. WordPerfect documents with tables have problems because Word 97 has a table dimension which WordPerfect didn't-inside/outside, along with the usual top/bottom/left/right. The problems occur when a table breaks a page-a bottom line is now an outside line, and the result is that the line "disappears." You'll need to be sure you have the border type necessary for the dimension to which the border is applied.
• Extra rows. Parallel columns in WordPerfect documents are most often the culprit here. The paragraph marks which separated the "rows" in the parallel columns will often convert to empty rows in Word. While this is not necessarily a "show-stopper," it does require you to select and delete those empty rows manually.
• Unwanted leading or trailing paragraph marks. WordPerfect documents converted using Word's native filter will usually contain unnecessary paragraph marks (that didn't exist in the original document), either before the text or after it. The problem also occurs in Word 6/95 documents, where there was no vertical cell alignment feature. Users had to play "tricks," adding tons of markers to get text to align vertically. Because of these additional paragraph marks, it's difficult to maintain and/or edit individual rows and/or cells with the new Word 97/2000 cell alignment features. To remove them from the table, select the table, then replace the paragraph marks with nothing. (Be sure to select the table first, otherwise, if you're not careful, you could remove every paragraph mark in the document) 

Field Codes

Field Codes provide a way to insert dynamic text into a document-text which updates as changes are made to the document. Examples of dynamic document elements are: table of contents, page numbers, cross-references, or updateable date and time stamps. For each of these different document requirements, Word provides a unique field code. In a converted document, Word attempts to create a field code to represent text which was created dynamically in some other application (for example, paragraph numbering).

The clean-up process involves determining whether a field code is performing a useful task in a document (or is legacy code from the old application), or whether it should be deleted or unlinked, then re-created. To delete a field code, select it, then press Delete. To unlink a field code, select it, then press Ctrl+Shift+F9. While most field codes are extraordinarily useful, there are some field codes which should always either be removed or unlinked in order to clean up a document. 

Problems You Might Encounter with Field Codes

• {Private}. This code exists in converted WordPerfect files (and mostly seen in those coming from WordPerfect 5.1). It is there to hold WordPerfect binary formatting elements which do not translate in Word, and would magically "unfold" if the document were sent back to WordPerfect. Documents brought into Word should stay in that application, therefore the code is unneeded.

• {Advance}. Again, this code exists in converted WordPerfect documents, where the "Advance" feature was frequently used to position text on the page. Word performs this task differently, so the field is superfluous.
• { }. Empty field codes are, unfortunately, very easy to create (it can be done merely by pressing Ctrl+F9, but are not at all useful.
• {SEQ}. In converted documents, these "sequence" codes exist where automatic paragraph numbering was created in the former application. While sequence codes do work (numbering performed with them IS sequential), they are difficult to use, and there are better, simpler ways to perform the task. It is best to unlink these codes (i.e., turn them to their textual equivalent) so that you can then replace them with an appropriate numbered style.
• {REF}. Tthis code appears in converted WordPerfect documents where cross-referencing was used. Word and WordPerfect perform this task very differently, and your life will be easier if you simply turn the reference to text, then re-create cross-referencing "Word's way." (Keep in mind, however, that not all reference codes are "bad." If the document did not come from WordPerfect, then the {REF} is probably a perfectly valid Word cross-referencing code.)
• {TC}{TOC} and {TA}{TOA}. The appearance of these codes in a converted WordPerfect file is not in and of itself "bad." These codes become problems when they conflict with how Word operates in your environment. Usually, this comes down to whether your firm is working with native Word, or whether it has purchased third-party software to perform the tasks involved in Tables of Contents and Tables of Authorities. (For example, you can use {TC}{TOC} codes to create a Table of Contents in native Word. However, if your firm uses a third-party application for numbering and Tables of Contents, then those codes may interfere with its proper functioning. Similarly, {TA}{TOA} codes are actual Word codes for the creation of Tables of Authorities, but their presence can hinder a third-party TOA application.) 

Tables of Contents

 If the Table of Contents in your document was created in Word (rather than converted from WordPerfect), then the clean up task can be a bit more complicated.  

Problems You May Encounter in a Table of Contents

Firms also used this hidden paragraph mark to enable the first sentence to have a different style (perhaps bold, underlined and numbered) from the "body text" style of the remainder of the paragraph. Firms which have chosen third-party paragraph numbering programs must eliminate these "work-arounds" so that their software can create the desired Table of Contents and/or text styling. 

There are two steps involved here: first, displaying the hidden text, and second, removing it. To display hidden text, be sure the Show/Hide ¶ button on the standard toolbar is selected, then use the Find feature to search for the "hidden" font attribute. Each time a hidden paragraph mark is found, you'll have to delete that paragraph mark, then continue the search. (Be careful! The text of the paragraph below will now be part of the one above [acquiring its style], potentially removing numbering or adding unwanted formatting. In other words, deleting that hidden paragraph mark could profoundly change the text below-be sure this is what you want to do!) 

Once all the hidden paragraph marks have been found and removed, check the document for {TC} and {TOC} codes, and unlink or remove them. See the Field Codes section, above, for details.

Automatic Paragraph Numbering 

We've saved the best (!) for last. The issues involving paragraph numbering encompass the document object, paragraph object, fields, tables of contents, character formatting, and styles. Paragraph numbering may very well be the one item in a Word document which produces the greatest number of help calls. Why? In the words of one of our colleagues, "It's neither simple, nor is it simplistic." It's complicated, it's not particularly intuitive, and if you don't do it perfectly, it breaks. There are a few rules to follow when you are creating, or cleaning up, paragraph numbering:

Paragraph numbering should always be linked to styles.

Numbered paragraphs should be indented from the margin by modifying the numbered style, never directly.

Problems You May Encounter with Outline Numbering 

In other words, you position the insertion point in a paragraph which has the numbered style you want to modify. Then, it's Format > Style > Modify > Format > Numbering > Customize. In this dialog box you can change the number style (1, 2, 3 or a, b, c), any text associated with the number (like parentheses) its font attributes (bold, etc.). Also set the paragraph's indents (the number's position relative to the margin, and the position of the text, both from the number and from the margin). Finally, it is in this dialog box where you can make sure the level is linked to a style. You'll perform the above steps for every level in the numbering scheme. 

(For more detailed information about Outline Numbering, see "The Seven Laws of Outline Numbering".)

If you're not a numbering virtuoso, it may be simpler to start from scratch, revert briefly to the "normal" style (remove the numbered styles from the affected paragraphs), re-create or modify the desired numbering scheme, then reapply the styles to the paragraphs. To revert to the Normal style on any paragraph, click in the paragraph, then press Ctrl+Shift+N. (Reverting to Normal removes any paragraph formatting which isn't defined in Normal.)

If you want to re-create the numbering styles, you can use the Organizer to delete the "bad" ones (unless they're Heading 1 through 9, which are built-in Word styles and can't be deleted). 

Or what about this: sometimes users will apply a numbered style to a directly-numbered paragraph. The net effect is the very disconcerting disappearance of the numbers! In this case, you'll use Ctrl+Q (which removes directly applied paragraph formatting) before you apply the numbered style. (This is, of course, counter-intuitive, and helps illustrate how numbering problems begin, and how they propagate...). If your firm uses third-party software to create and apply automatic paragraph numbering, you should follow whatever procedure is recommended by that application to re-create or modify its numbered styles