Brian Barker [mailto:[email protected]] replied: [...] > > Is your table heading a real one - created by ticking Heading in the > Insert Table dialogue - or just the first row of your table? I think > this matters.
It was created months ago, and I can't recall. How does one tell? If I switch on Repeat Heading, that row repeats at the top of each new-page segment of table. The repeating heading disappears if I switch off Repeat Heading in the Table > Properties. But I don't know if that's definitive. > >It happens that the first two content rows of my table fit nicely on > >the next page... with enough unused space for... oh... say... > >perhaps a nice heading row?? > > There are two settings that seem to affect this for me: > o Table | Table Properties... | Text Flow | Allow table to split > across pages and columns. (Remove tick.) > o Table | Table Properties... | Text Flow | Keep with next > paragraph. (Tick box.) I thought maybe - since every table extends at least two pages - that "Allow table to split across pages and columns" was necessary. If it's not needed in order for my table to actually break from page to page, then.... What's it for? Checking and unchecking it seems to have no effect on the existing table and its surroundings. > The second setting seems to be intended to affect the way the entire > table and the following text paragraph are treated, but - > surprisingly - it does seem to influence what you are seeing. I did try that, and wasn't getting satisfactory shifts, but at least it appeared to cause changes to happen. I just wasn't quite sure what those changes were. :-) > Of course, a crude workaround is to add a manual page break before > the table or even to set an automatic page break before (on the Text > Flow tab, as above), if appropriate. I finally settled on that method, while holding my nose. :-) However, I was immediately punished. The next section holds a similar table (breaks over three pages). It got moved when I "fixed" the table above it. The section starts with a new Heading1, and an introductory paragraph, which together occupy the top quarter of the page. Following this is 3/4 page of open space, then the table starts on the following page with a heading row and two content rows, which fill all but one line's worth of the available space on that page (in the text area... there's also a separate footer at the bottom of each page... which I hope is not relevant). The pages after that contain two rows each, with the last page having room below the table, currently occupied by more body text. To my mind, the sensible thing would be for the header and first content row to be on the page just below the Heading1 and intro paragraph, followed by whatever breaks worked well per page, and leaving perhaps one cell on the last page, just above the following paragraphs of body text. I have switched off every "Keep with", and every widow/orphan setting I can find, for the table, the Table Heading style, the Table Contents style, and even the styles of text immediately before and after the table. No change. I started with high hopes that I could do everything (as is right and proper) with styles and "global" settings. It turns out that I've tumbled into the same trap of fidgeting and fussing with endless local-formatting tweaks and their cascading repercussions that I'd "enjoyed" with Word in a previous century. The Help, of course, has been unhelpful. Just to give you the overview of what I'm working on, it's a booklet intended to be printed with two-pages per side on US Letter-size (or rest-of-world A4) paper, stacked and folded along the short axis to make an 8.5x5.5-inch (roughly A5?) booklet. So the single-column pages are rather small-ish. The content is text-and-pictures. Instructional sequences are set off from the rest of the drivel as tables. One table is two columns, a skinny left-hand one labeled "Qty", and a fat right-hand one labeled "Item". The Items are pictures of the components you (customer) should receive, with a few words of description per item. So each row is a single numeral in the left-hand cell and a picture and text in the right-hand box, and perhaps two such rows might fit on a page. The table occupies most of three pages. Other tables dispense with the Qty columns and are just single-column sequences of instructions, one per row/cell, with a mix of words and picture per row/cell. The longest table scatters itself over six of my little pages. All seemed fine until I needed to insert an additional three-row table of some optional-purchase items, which then bumped everything and revealed the odd page-break/table-break habits of Ooo. And gave me a headache. It goes without saying that a deadline looms. :-) - Kevin The information contained in this electronic mail transmission may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected from disclosure. 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