page x of x, again, with a twist (2003)

**fburg** · 2004-12-06 04:25

Hi All,

The page x of x problem has been with Word for some time and was supposedly fixed. But I ran into it again in Word 2003 but with a strange twist.

Apologies for not attaching document but right now its 300+ KB unzipped but I may have to strip some material out anyway bcs of some pictures in the file (nothing really proprietary). So let me describe the construction of the document.

Sec 1: 1 page to serve as the official cover sheet for the document; no headers and footers; a graphic element and some text; next-page sec break at end
Sec 2: 1 page that used to be the cover and I just didn't delete it; no headers and footers; just text; next-page sec break at end
Sec 3:
- 17 pages
- no header
- footer with a bunch of stuff but most important is "Page " followed by a pagenumber field followed by " of " followed a cross-reference field to the page number where a bookmark named The_end is around text "THE END".

When I look at the document on the screen, it looks fine. The Sec 3 pages show "...1 of 17", "...2 of 17", "...3 of 17", etc.

Now here's the twist.

Page 2 of Sec 3 has some item in color while pages 3-17 do not. I have 2 printers: an Epson 785EPX color printer and an HP Laserjet 2300L.

So of course, I decided to print pages 1 and 2 of Sec 3 on the Epson and the rest of the doc on the HP. (Part of the decision to print both pages 1 and 2 on the color is that there seems to be some problem when both printers are turned on, so I have to turn one printer off if I turn the other one on.) No problem ?

For the color pages: Go into the file menu, print, set the pages to p1s3-p2s3, choose the color printer and press OK. Comes out fine. The footer shows "...1 of 17" and "...2 of 17".

Now for the rest: Go into the file menu, print, set the pages to p3s3-p17s3, choose the HP and press OK. NOT OK. The footer shows "...3 of 3", "...4 of 4", ..., "...16 of 16" and "...17 of 17". Well, at least it got 1 footer right (all the text was fine).

Print Preview looks fine.

I'd think if I printed all the pages on the Epson color printer, it might have turned out OK. Maybe the same if I printed everything on the HP. But why in the world would it make a diff as to which printer I use as to what the "of" numbers are???

TIA for any ideas.

BTW: I just crossed out the "of" numbers on 3-16 and put the right number (17) since the paper is due today. I know my teacher won't care about this detail but thought I'd ask if anyone had any ideas. If useful, I can get a stripped down version but not sure that will help anyone if you don't have my setup or a similar one.

Fred

**jscher2000** · 2004-12-06 20:39

Changing printers shouldn't change any of the settings that seem relevant to page numbering (such as whether fields are updated, and whether the pagination is calculated before that happens). Seems quite strange to me!

**HansV** · 2004-12-07 10:56

What happens if you print first p1s3-p2s3, then p3s3-p17s3 on the HP? And if you do the same on the color printer?

**fburg** · 2004-12-07 17:45

Hi Hans,

Thanks for taking an interest. This is getting stranger.

Rather than print the entire document, I decided to print on each of the HP and Epson as follows (with each printer off when the other is on):
a) first print operation: p1s3-p2s3
[img]/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif[/img] second print operation: p3s3-p4s3

so as not to use a lot of paper, etc.

For the Epson (color), I got
a) page 1 labeled 1 of 1 and page 2 labeled 2 of 2 (so not tracking results in original post)
[img]/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif[/img] page 3 labeled 3 of 17 and page 4 labeled 4 of 17 (didn't print this originally on the Epson)

For the HP (laser), I got
a) page 1 labeled 1 of 1 and page 2 labeled 2 of 2 (didn't print this originally on the HP)
[img]/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif[/img] page 3 labeled 3 of 3 and page 4 labeled 4 of 4 (tracking results in original post)

There is only 1 footer in section 3. And it's for every page, not a first page or an odd/even footer.

And what I think is stranger is that the value for the "of" part is based on the page number of the bookmark, as originally described.

If anyone thinks it worthwhile, I can send the file to someone. Unfortunately, there are the 2 graphics early in the document (cover and p2s3) that make the file size big but may be crucial for finding the problem. Creating a file of just the first 5 pages of section 3 plus the covers and zipping it still results in a file of about 210KB.

Fred

**HansV** · 2004-12-07 18:04

Have you actually tried if the problem persists if you remove the graphics, or replace them with a simple box?

**fburg** · 2004-12-07 18:23

Hi Hans,

Just tried it. Deleted the graphic on pg 2 of section 3 (still have cover graphic on only page of section 1). Printed same as in last email but just on HP laser
a) first print job: p1s3-p2s3
[img]/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif[/img] second print job: p3s3-p4s3

Still getting 1 of 1, 2 of 2, etc.

Any theories on why the bookmark's page # seems to change. I thought this was the workaround for the versions of Word before this problem was "fixed."

One benefit from all this: hopefully I'll remember the syntax of how to print specific pages from specific sections from now on. Since I rarely do it, I usually end up having to look it up in help (and help seems to be getting harder to use with each version of Word).

Fred

**fburg** · 2004-12-07 18:42

OK. Here's the doc with sec 1 and its graphic, sec 2, and pages 1-5 of sec 3 with NO graphic on page 2. It's about 90KB without zipping.

Fred

**HansV** · 2004-12-07 19:30

Since the problem remains after removing the graphic, can you get the zip file small enough to post now?

**HansV** · 2004-12-07 19:45

I am using Word 2002, and get the "page x of x" too. It was supposed to have been solved in one of the service packs of Word 2000 <img src=/S/crazy.gif border=0 alt=crazy width=15 height=15>

The old trick of printing in reversed order (click Options... in the Print dialog) still works, fortunately. I don't see another workaround at the moment.

**fburg** · 2004-12-07 22:49

Oh well, thanks for the effort.

I have no idea what the problem is. I did recall that there was a fix some time ago but that dealt with the NUMPAGES field. I think the workaround (maybe proposed by Phil Rabichow at the time) involved the approach I followed with the bookmark. I thought that should work first time, every time.

Is printing in reverse order the answer? If I do that, won't I get "The end" and its bookmark at the beginning and now, if it works at all, all my footers will say "page x of 1"? <img src=/S/confused3.gif border=0 alt=confused3 width=45 height=45>

<img src=/S/grin.gif border=0 alt=grin width=15 height=15> <img src=/S/laugh.gif border=0 alt=laugh width=15 height=15>

Fred

**HansV** · 2004-12-07 22:59

On my PC (Word 2002, an Epson inkjet printer) selecting reverse print order caused the numbers in the footer to be printed correctly.

You could use SECTIONPAGES instead of the PAGEREF field, but on my PC this exhibited the same problem when printing forward.

**fburg** · 2004-12-07 23:11

Well, not much to say on this other than...
BFBSB (=Bugs Fixed But Still Broken).

Thanks.

Fred

**Phil Rabichow** · 2004-12-08 01:20

<hr>It was supposed to have been solved in one of the service packs of Word 2000<hr>

It was. <img src=/S/laugh.gif border=0 alt=laugh width=15 height=15> I just tried it in Word 2000, & the page numbers are correct. Guess it got reintroduced.

**HansV** · 2004-12-08 01:21

So they reintroduced the bug in Word 2002 and left it in Word 2003. That's progress for you...

**KB MacKenzie** · 2004-12-09 01:54

<img src=/S/laugh.gif border=0 alt=laugh width=15 height=15> You gotta love 'em! In XP SP3 when first printing, had same results (x of x). Went into print preview and was able to get x of n. When I returned to print layout view, or normal view it printed fine.

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