Keep with next - if the next text is table does not work anymore

[Malatheon]

Hi, I ran into an issue, where it does not seem to be possible to keep title (single line of text) with the following table. My table title has a separate style attached to it that uses "Keep with next". This works perfectly if the following is another paragraph. But if what follows is the table, keep with next is not honored anymore. (Microsoft Word version 2202 on Windows x64). Has anybody else ran into this?

Also, when using print preview - the layout somewhat breaks as if Word was trying to honor keep with next and it just keeps jumping back and forth. I can provide more info and pics if it could be of any help.

Thanks for any hints!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@Malatheon 

In a quick test, I observed nothing strange here, using a built-in heading style and a table immediately below the heading paragraph. 

Did you make sure that there were no blank paragraphs between the heading and the first table row? Click the ¶ icon on the Home tab to view all nonprinting marks. 

If you want to, you can share a sample document which illustrates what you see.

[#3]

Hi Stefan, thanks for chipping in. I looked into it again on another machine - somehow it started working with no apparent reason. I will try with Windows 11 later today. At this moment, it started working as expected, go figure.

[#4]

@Malatheon 

Thanks for the follow-up. I'm glad you got it sorted, in the end. 

[#5]

@Stefan_Blom OK, so I re-did the test under Windows 11 (22H2 22579.1) and the "keep with next" functionality is indeed broken. Here is a short clip demonstrating the issue. The table sticks together nicely, but the title does not. (on the link the clip is not compressed to heavily like on the gif below).

https://www.screenpresso.com/=a1Otd

[#6]

@Malatheon 

I see the issue in your clip. Can you also share a sample document in Word format? You can upload it to OneDrive or Dropbox and post a "share" link in the thread.

[#7]

@Stefan_Blom 

Here is the document

Interestingly, in the online version of Word the Table title is shown on the second page, whereas at the same time, on the desktop version it is at the bottom of the first page. 

I have also created another video showing the strange behaviour, adding only gif this time, should be enough. That the Table title appears twice is not a video glitch, it really does happen.

[#8]

@Malatheon 

In the web browser version of Word, the display is often less reliable. The reading view is more accurate. 

Here, I am not seeing a glitch when I open the document in the full version of Word (version 2202, Office 2021, running under Windows 11). Deleting/adding a paragraph mark on the first page will move the title + the table back and forth between the pages in the expected manner.

[#9]

@Stefan_Blom 

yes, the same document behaves normally in the same version of MS Word on my other machine with Windows Server 2019, but shows this strange behavior under Windows 11

[#10]

@Malatheon 

I have a similar issue with my offline version of Word on a Windows 10 machine. 

I have a highly structured document where every heading is followed by a table, and there are a lot of headings, which means that I now have a lot of orphaned headings at the bottom of pages. Keep with next is activated for all heading styles.

I have not worked on the document for a few weeks, but at the beginning of March everything was still OK, that is, keep with next would prevent page breaks between a heading and a table (no empty lines in between). 

In the online version of Word, keep with next still seems to work, but I cannot store the file in OneDrive. 

Does anyone have a solution for this? 

Version information:

Office 365, 14931 20132

[#11]

@MKnebel 

You can share a sample document in Word format, and someone will have a look. 

[#12]

@Stefan_Blom : This is a sample document with a similar structure than the original: My test document.docx

We also tried to open the original document on a different team members machine and there it works as normal. Her version is more advanced than mine, therefore I hope the problem is gone after the next Office update. 

[#13]

I have now updated office 365 to version 16.0.15028.20204 and the bug is gone. The original document behaves as expected again.

[#14]

@MKnebel 

Thanks for the follow-up. I'm glad that updating Office sorted the issue. 

[#15]

@Stefan_Blom Hi! I just wanted to mention that I had the same issue as mentionned above: "keep with next" didn't seem to be working with a table, and even with normal text. 

Here is what the problem was: the previous paragraph had "keep with next" activated and seemed to have precedence over the next one. By deactivating "keep with next" in the previous paragraph or table, all functioned normally (someone had overused the function in the document, it was everywhere).

I just thought that might be useful information to other users.

[#16]

@LuBail 

For paragraphs in the main body of the document, "Keep with next" works as you would expect: it keeps the paragraph with the next paragraph. (Inline objects behave as text characters within a text paragraph, so these would also be affected by "Keep with next.")

Within a table, "Keep with next" formatting will only work if it is applied to an entire row.