Typing into document with "Different First Page" 2007

This has been a bugaboo for my clients and me in Word 2003 and it appears to
continue in 2007. I've set up many "templates" for clients, which have a
"Different First Page." The differences a a much deeper and unique header,
and a greater top margin. Subsequent pages (after page 1) have a shallower
and different-content header, and a lesser top margin. (I say "templates"
because these are not saved as .dot files, but I don't believe this makes a
difference. These are .doc files that my clients use as the basis for their
custom documents.) Many users are not Word "power users" but know their way
around. Is there a way to allow users to type into such a document, WITHOUT
having to carefully skip over the Section Break at the bottom of page 1?
Invariably, users get confused because it's not readily apparent to them WHY
there is a section break, and if they type merrily along, or worse, copy and
paste content from another document, they are terribly confused to find
missing headers, wrong headers, strange margins, all kinds of to-do'ing. It's
just not user-friendly at all. It doesn't seem like it should be so difficult
to retain the formatting we are trying to achieve whilst a user changes the
body content of the document. The section breaks guidelines on the MVP site
are enough to confuse even me; I can't expect my clients to go through all
those gyrations just to keep the first page different from the rest of the
document. Is there an easier way to do this that I'm completely missing? Is
it time for Microsoft to make this easier?

What you have is NOT "Different first page" at all but a separate section.
For the correct way to handle this, see the multi-page letter info at
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/Letterhead.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"whitneysw" wrote in message
...
This has been a bugaboo for my clients and me in Word 2003 and it appears
to
continue in 2007. I've set up many "templates" for clients, which have a
"Different First Page." The differences a a much deeper and unique
header,
and a greater top margin. Subsequent pages (after page 1) have a shallower
and different-content header, and a lesser top margin. (I say "templates"
because these are not saved as .dot files, but I don't believe this makes
a
difference. These are .doc files that my clients use as the basis for
their
custom documents.) Many users are not Word "power users" but know their
way
around. Is there a way to allow users to type into such a document,
WITHOUT
having to carefully skip over the Section Break at the bottom of page 1?
Invariably, users get confused because it's not readily apparent to them
WHY
there is a section break, and if they type merrily along, or worse, copy
and
paste content from another document, they are terribly confused to find
missing headers, wrong headers, strange margins, all kinds of to-do'ing.
It's
just not user-friendly at all. It doesn't seem like it should be so
difficult
to retain the formatting we are trying to achieve whilst a user changes
the
body content of the document. The section breaks guidelines on the MVP
site
are enough to confuse even me; I can't expect my clients to go through all
those gyrations just to keep the first page different from the rest of the
document. Is there an easier way to do this that I'm completely missing?
Is
it time for Microsoft to make this easier?