Problems with formatting when I copy and paste pages from one Pub2010 document to another - please help!

Question

Hi there,

When I copy and past a page from one publisher document to another I lose the formating - for example the text box shrinks when you paste it.

This never used to happen in Publisher 2007.

Here is what I have tried to rectify the problem:

1.  Having the clipboard open/ showing in both documents

2.  Emptying the clipboard before each copy and paste. (not something that needed to be done in previous versions)

I would love to be able to sort this out as it takes lots of time to re-format everything! Thank you so much for your help!

Answer 1

Thanks for doing the experiments and posting back. For some reason MS changed the default settings in text boxs for Pub 2010, but now at least you can copy and paste a page in two steps.

You have figured out how to copy and paste the text boxes and keep the source formatting. Let's make that the second step.

The first step is to copy and paste everything else on the page. To do this first make sure that you have the 'Home tab' selected in the menu and that you can see the 'Group' command under the 'Arrange' group. Then instead of using Ctrl + A or 'Select all' to select everything on the page, starting at the top of your page, hold down the Ctrl key and click/select each individual design element on the page, excluding the text boxes. Once you have clicked/selected all the other elements then 'group' those elements together. You can click the 'group' icon under 'arrange' or you can use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + G.

Now you can copy and paste that group of elements onto the other page in one step. Then in step two, add the text boxes.

Granted this is not as easy as copying the entire page in one step but it will at least save you the time of copying and pasting each of the non-text box elements and it will help you maintain the layout of the page.

DavidF

Answer 2

I could not make any of the other suggestions work with Publisher 2010 but this one did. Thank you, Kimberley. This is going to save me a lot of time.

Answer 3

I found a solution tonight. None of the other solutions worked for me. When transferring from one file to another, group all the objects on the page, then right click and select "Save as building block." You can name it by page number or it will give it a name of "Group" with an ascending number for each group or page you create.  After you have save the grouped page as a building block, go to the document you are will paste it into and under the insert tab, click on page parts. This will bring up a menu with your grouped page in it. Select it and it comes through with no loss of formatting. Then you can ungroup it if you would like. This worked for me -finally! I hope it helps you!

Answer 4

This sort-of works, but the layout still isn't exactly the same, it doesn't fit all the words into the text box because the new Publisher document inserts standard (6pt) paragraph spacing after each paragraph, when in the original Publisher file I had reduced this to 0pt. But this was easy to put right once I had worked out the difference, and it does seem to be the only difference.

Answer 5

Perfect. This is obviously intended to be the official Microsoft Publisher method for doing this. How come nobody, myself included knows how to do this? Shellyphoenix thank you very, very much.