I'm having a thorny problem getting footers to link to each other in Word 2007. I'm pretty sure the issue has to do with multiple section breaks on a single page that "hide" certain footers, rendering them inaccessible and therefore un-linkable.
As part of a reformatting task, I am trying to swap new headers into old Word documents. These Word docs were created between two and eight years ago, usually in Word 2003, but sometimes in earlier editions (Word 1997, I believe). I am using Word 2007. The problem persists whether or not I open the .DOC files in Compatibility Mode or I convert them to the .DOCX format. Identical sample files in the two different formats are attached.
Examine the footers in the attached files. Notice that the footer on the last page ("Old Footer") is different from the other footers ("New Footer"). I believe the problem lies with the mid-page section breaks on page 2. When in the Header and Footer editing mode, note the sequence of the sections: Footer Section 1, Footer Section 2, Footer Section 5. What happened to sections 3 and 4? Those are the mid-page sections. The trouble is, sections 3 and 4, despite having no visible footers, presumably have their "Link to Previous" button unselected, breaking the chain of linked Footers. My Footer Section 5 is linked to the invisible and inaccessible Footer Section 4.
How do I solve this? If there were some way to do a mass resetting of all footers in all sections to my new style, that would work. If there were some way to do a mass selection of "Link to Previous" for all footers in all sections that would probably work. These documents (of which I've got several dozen) can reach 500 to 1000 pages with a huge number of sections. I won't be able to visit each section and massage each one individually... I need a mass option. Additionally, the mid-page section breaks, while probably creating my problem, are serving their formatting function (columns) quite well, so I don't want to remove them.
Thanks,
