Keep with Before

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Don't get me started on Microsoft ...

I have a simple document with "Heading 1", "Heading 2" and "Heading 3" styled paragraphs, and within each heading, text in "Body Text" style.

Sadly some of the Body Text material splits across a page, and I'd rather have all the Body text on the same page as its immediate parent "Heading".

Office 2003 hasn't had "Keep With Before" for at least the last 8 years, so I wrote the attached.

Use:

Place the text cursor anywhere in any paragraph of YOUR text style; it doesn't have to be Body Text.

Run the macro TESTKeepWithBeforeSelection.

Method:

I'm using Selection so you can enjoy the blinking lights.

I leave your original selection in place when I'm done.

I use the style of the FIRST paragraph in your selection as my guiding light.

I turn OFF KeepWithNext and turn ON KeepTogether in every paragraph in the document.

Then for each paragraph in your chosen style, I backup one paragraph to the preceding paragraph and turn ON KeepWithNext.

This seems to work for me.

Function KeepWithBeforeSelection(strStyle As String)
   Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
   Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
   Selection.Find.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(strStyle)
   With Selection.Find
       .Text = "^p"
       .Replacement.Text = ""
       .Forward = True
       .Wrap = wdFindContinue
       .Format = True
       .MatchCase = False
       .MatchWholeWord = False
       .MatchWildcards = False
       .MatchSoundsLike = False
       .MatchAllWordForms = False
   End With
   While Selection.Find.Execute
       Selection.MoveUp Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=2
       Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
       With Selection.ParagraphFormat
           .KeepWithNext = True
       End With
       Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=2
   Wend
End Function
Sub TESTKeepWithBeforeSelection()
   Dim rng As Range
   Set rng = Selection.Range
   Dim strStyle As String
   strStyle = Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.Style.NameLocal
   Selection.WholeStory
   With Selection.ParagraphFormat
       .KeepWithNext = False
       .KeepTogether = True
   End With
   Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
   Call KeepWithBeforeSelection(strStyle)
   rng.Select
End Sub

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