Repeat header row at the top of each page does not work as expected...

Anonymous
2013-10-27T14:55:55+00:00

I have tried to use the table properties option checkbox reading Repeat as header row at the top of each page, however, the header row just does not appear at the top of each page.

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Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2013-10-27T15:23:13+00:00

To be a repeating header row, the row must be the first row of the table (multiple rows can be selected, but they must include the first and be contiguous. (Make sure, however, that you don't have the entire table selected when you designate a row as the header row.)

In addition, the table must have text wrapping set to None (Tabletab of Table Properties).

If the table contains a manual page break, the header will not repeat. You can, however, insert a page break without breaking the table by formatting a row as "Page break before" (on the Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog).

Note that this applies only to tables. If you want a page header, you need to add a header to the page itself.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-28T22:55:48+00:00

    Hi Kylie,

    I've seen this happen before, but not lately. I suspect it might have had to do with a problem in the XML code processing that Word does. In essence even though the top two rows of the table appeared "connected" and part of the same table, if you were able to write a VBA macro that counted how many tables there were in the document, it would return with a value of 2 rather than one. And if you had your VBA routine select each table it found in the document so you could visually see its selections, you'd see it identifying the first row of the table as one individual table and then the remainder of the table as another separate table.

    During the last number of months there were patches pushed down to all versions of Word involving tables and how the XML (which is the coding method of "docx" files) was dealing with compatibility among the code in the various versions. It's a long story but basically there were differences and this caused documents to open into "compatibility mode" on various systems. It involved tables and it caused problems.

    So I would ask...

    1. Are you running the most up-to-date patch level on your version of Word?
    2. Does the document in question show that it is in "compatibility" mode?
    3. What happens with the table's behavior if you convert the document using the Convert function that is on the File/Back Stage menu if the document is in compatibility mode?

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-11-28T00:31:31+00:00

    Thank you so much. I am sending  it now. I would LOVE to know how to do this on my own. the issue is if I dont change the wrap text then it discontents from the header and I basically just have a page with headings not joined to my content

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  3. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-11-28T00:12:49+00:00

    This is just the opposite of what would be expected. An inline table will always flow from one page to the next (though with some limitations depending on "Keep with Next" and "Allow row to break across pages" settings). In some versions of Word a wrapped table cannot be broken across pages. But in any version of Word, a heading row cannot be repeated in a wrapped table. I'd be interested in looking at the document in which you can't get the table to break to a new page. You can send it to ssbarnhill at gmail dot com.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-11-27T23:02:24+00:00

    The only way I have been able to get the text to flow from page to page in the one table is if I select text wrapping for around. I dont know why but that how it has been working. But I also need the header to repeat which wont happen unless i select text wrapping none

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