Page Breaks in Word imports

[loftwork]

Beginner question but can't find any coverage in the Getting Started guide: Imported a 20-page MSW file but on arrival it has erratic extra page breaks ("Avoided Page Break") which can't be deleted and persist on the target build. Only using default page layout so no clues there either. Web layout not surprisingly is not affected.

Many thanks, Rick

[lacastle]

do you mean that it divided topics in weird places? what do you have set for 'avoid empty topics' and the topic word limits? what styles do you have mapped for the import? if your original word doc has extra styles and empty paragraphs and page breaks, it will definitely not be a clean import. i recommend removing most of the styles in your original word doc and keeping everything every basic to import easily.

or, are you talking about a word target that you generated? check your heading styles to see that 'page break before' is set to 'avoid' if you don't want pages to break there.

here is some information from the flare help about importing word docs - http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... uments.htm

p.s. welcome to the forums!

[writer9]

[Using Flare 7.2]

I ran into a similar issue.

I had a problem with the left indentation of the H1 tag(imported from Word) because it was embedded within a /div and /blockquote. So I typed the heading in the next line and applied the H1 tag. The H1 tag went to the next page and left an empty page before it (the first page). I'm trying to delete it manually (just like we do in Word: click delete and bring the second page to the first) and I'm unable to do that. I also went to the style sheet, selected the style and tried to edit based on instructions in help: Features > Styles and Style Sheets > More About Editing Styles > Setting Page and Column Breaks:

c.Select the appropriate style. For example, you can select the base p tag, or you can select a class that you may have created for that tag (e.g., p.Tip, p.Note). You can also place a page break on a heading style (such as <h1>).
d.In the local toolbar of the editor, click . The Properties dialog opens.
e.Select the Breaks tab.

But I'm unable to select the Properties icon because it's grayed out. The Edit>Properties is also grayed out.

What am I missing here? And how can I delete that page?

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

Rekha.

[loftwork]

Thanks Laura, the quick response is appreciated.

It's a Word2007 import. I mentioned the target just to say that the empty pages persisted in a PDF target. There are no empty pages in the original but there are lots of styles. It's a complicated document template on the MSW side, one of a series of databooks many of which are up to 500 pages long, so I can't remove too many of the styles even from a little tech note. It looks as though the pages are inserted on style changes even when the style has no page change association. If I cut out sample MSW pages for 'show-n-tell' the problem vanishes, so it's obviously not just a local issue, could be something about MSW conditional paragraph formatting? Same question as Rekah about how to delete pages in the Flare editor, and still investigating what triggers the extra page breaks.

[wclass]

Here are some things to check for Word import - some of these you might have tried:

In Flare, check the Imports > Options tab:

• check "Split Long documents" option - will break after the threshold if set
• check "Avoid creating 'empty' topics" option - check threshold again

In Word, check:

• section breaks and "hard" page breaks - will split on these breaks so remove them if not wanted - a hard page break just before a Heading 1 might create an empty topic
• Word doc is set up with Heading styles where you want the topics to break - if you have a Heading 2 straight after a Heading 1 , the h1 will be in a topic by itself
• empty paragraphs of the heading style you are breaking on
• styles that have "Page break before" as part of the style
• paragraphs that have "Page break before" manually set
• other styles based on headings can cause breaks (like Appendix)

[writer9]

Thanks Laura and Margaret for the information!

Margaret, that checklist definitely helps! I'll try that one out for my next project.

Regards,
Rekha.

[loftwork]

Hi,

Still having problems with this after more research. The problem is superfluous page breaks appearing in print layout and print targets when creating a new project from Word documents.

1. The source file format may be DOCX, XML or RTF - minor differences but extra page breaks in all. These are "Avoided page breaks". They are not topic breaks.
2. Word styles are preserved during import but there are no extra style mappings.
3. If Word styles are not preserved the extra breaks do not appear.
4. The extra breaks can be seen if Layout = Print regardless of Target type.
5. The Built output has extra breaks if the Target = PDF or XHTML Book.
6. The Built output does not have extra breaks if the Target = Word.
7. Since you can add a page by adding an extra para in Print Layout onscreen, it looked like a CSS problem. But the p.para tag.class has been edited to avoid pages before, after and inside with no effect.

This must be a 'trees and forest' problem. I've attached a sample output (PDF in a ZIP) and any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks, Rick

MyWebHelp.zip

[wclass]

The solution is not clear just by looking at the PDF output but here are the items I would check next:

• Look at the CSS and target - did the import create a CSS file and is it being used by the target? If you have different output between Word and PDF they might be accessing different style sheets.
• Check the code of the stylesheet - have "mediums" been generated and where are they being used?
• Check the code of the HTML topic that contains the problem headings:
  • have some sections been enclosed in DIVs
  • have the right styles been applied
  • have inline styles been applied

There are probably some things to check with the Page Layout you use but I can't think of a list at the moment.
I have to admit that I don't use Print Layout onscreen, but when you change from Web to Print Layout view, the medium does change - is it possible that some of the tweaks have been changed in one medium and not the other?

[loftwork]

To close the topic, it's just where local page breaks have been applied to <p> tags, which apparently happens automatically during MSWord file import in response to 'keep with next' and similar paragraph formatting controls in the original. To get rid of unwanted breaks just look at the Breaks properties in the Format/Paragraph menu and change as required.

It's also a convenient way to manually insert breaks - apply a Break After = Always to the <p> just before the section heading. But you knew that already....