Monday, March 13, 2017

I Get It Now, Old Vs. New Style Separator

A while back I posted a thorough article about the style separator. Let me refresh your memory about the style separator that was introduced in MS Word 2003.

You have a Multi-Level outline going. Let's say level one (Heading 1) is Article 1. and level 2 (Heading 2) of the outline is Section 1.1

Now, in many documents that use outlining, the headings are by themselves and do not share the regular paragraph. Sometimes they do, and when they do, the majority of the time it is the second level. It would look something like this:

Section 1.1 Provisions of the Contract. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Because Section 2 shares the paragraph, if we do not put in the Style Separator, (control alt enter) when we run the TOC it will bring in the entire paragraph into the TOC.

Without going through the entire Style Separator routine how did they go about this before the current style separator when Heading 2 shared the paragraph? 

1. They would apply heading two which would temporarily apply to the entire paragraph.
2. Then they made a return after the second level info which would throw the bulk of the paragraph underneath the level two heading.
3. They would then highlight the return (just the return) they just made and apply the "hidden" attribute to it (under Font) and would color the return red so other operators are tipped off that this method is in use.
4. They would then highlight the remainder of the paragraph and apply a body text that served to disassociate the remainder of the paragraph from the Heading 2 even though heading two shares the paragraph . When the TOC is run the Heading 2 text will only be extracted.
5. This method does work but it is essentially not used because of the way it displays visually on the screen.

Okay so what do we want to take from this?

1. With the current style separator the paragraph stays together and appears as one solid paragraph at all times both on the screen and in the Print Preview and Print Layout.

2. With the old method, the bulk of each second level paragraph appears under the level two text on the screen.

3. Because the return uses the "Hidden" attribute when you go to Print Layout or look at the paragraph under Print Preview, "only then" will the paragraph look as one solid paragraph. 

4. On the screen it will always look like it has been separated from the Heading 2 line and this confusing look I believe is what prompted Microsoft to create the Style Separator. 

www.advanceto.com

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