Re: parallel columns

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From: Chip Orange (chip.orange_at_psc.state.fl.us[remove-me-and-brackets)
Date: 02/19/04 

Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:04:13 -0500

Thanks Bob,

This document has an unusual table of contents requirement that's really
preventing us from using frames. As you suggested, frames is where we ended
up. The problem is that we're producing an agenda, and the left column has
the agenda item number and some additional info about the class of item.
They want this in the table of contents *as part of the same toc entry* as
the first paragraph of the right-hand column. No problem if there's just a
tab between the 2, but, when part of the text is in a frame, Word doesn't
see it as contiguous with the text next to it, so it won't make a single TOC
entry for it.

I don't know a lot about TOC generation (heck, not a lot about Word!), but
maybe I should stick with frames and generate my own TOC from scratch rather
than use Word's automated feature. If I don't do that there just doesn't
seem to be a good way to make parallel columns (non-newspaper) otherwise,
but that's why I asked here, to make sure I hadn't missed one.

Chip

"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" <robert.franz@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:c10qhi$4pm$1@newshispeed.ch...
> Hi Chip
>
> Chip Orange wrote:
> > We're creating a template for many users to use and we're trying to
recreate
> > the parallel columns feature in WordPerfect (we're converting from wp to
> > Word 2002).
> >
> > We have 2 columns, the left hand one will be empty most of the time, and
the
> > right hand one will contain free-form text which may span pages.
> >
> > We don't want to use tables because of the problems we've read about in
> > controlling the breaking of a large row over multiple pages.
>
> Tables only seem a good idea when the paragraphs in the right "column"
> are relatively short. Note the term "columns" since it's not what Word
> knows under that topic (and you definitely don't want to use that here!
> :-)).
>
>
> > We don't want to use styles with hanging indents because often, text
will be
> > pasted from other documents, and this text will have its own styles
applied
> > for formatting.
>
> If you want consistent layout in your document, you will have to get rid
> of almost any foreign style when you paste (esp. numbering). But I
> wouldn't venture into paragraph properties alone here: If your left
> margin might have a couple of Words which should break onto the next
> line, you are lost with this setup.
>
>
> > We've tried using the left advance, textboxes, and frames (all in
> > conjunction with an extra large left margin to form our left-hand
column),
> > and run into problems in each case (either problems getting to the left
> > column for editing, or, getting the text to be able to appear in the
table
> > of contents).
>
> Usually, Frames are the way to go here. They ARE tricky to setup (and
> IIRC it was easier in Word 97 than later on), but when you're there, you
> can make them part of a style and off you go; applying them gets very,
> very easy, and quickly. No problem with finding stuff in frames for
> references in TOC, INDEX, etc. (though usually, I can hardly imagine why
> I wanted to do that with a real margin, unless you want to put your
> headings into the left "column"?).
>
> Greetinx
> .bob
> ..Word-MVP
> --
> /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
> \ /
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> / \ in e-mail & news
>

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