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Section Breaks Appear to Be Backwards in OOXML vs Rendered Document

Connor Shore 110 Reputation points
2025-04-28T17:13:00.82+00:00

Hello,

I have a document where there is a continuous section break on the first page, followed by a page break and then a next-page section break on the following page. I am confused why it appears this way as the OOXML for the document shows the section break between the lines "Before Continuous Section Break" and "After Continuous Section Break" as a next-page section break. (The type isn't explicitly defined and from what I found here, the default is nextPage when the type isn't explicitly defined). Then the next section break that occurs after the page break is labeled as type=continuous. My question is why is the first section break in the rendered word document a continuous section break and the second section break in the document is a next-page section break when the order of those is reversed in the OOXML? Thank you in advance.

Link to document: https://windwardstudios.box.com/s/3gnz1p8aw7oaib3hb61b28wdyzwr1dsw

Connor

Microsoft 365 and Office | Open Specifications
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  1. John Korchok 223K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-04-28T20:39:31.1233333+00:00

    It's a bit of pretzel logic, but the parameters of a section occur at the end of the section, not the beginning. Type=continuous is referring to the previous section that starts with a Continuous Section Break. The parameters for the last section appear at the very end of the XML, just before the /w:body tag.

    1 person found this answer helpful.

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