Who Knew Such a Little Thing Could be so Difficult?

On September 8, I proudly posted a photo of me holding a proof copy of “V. B. R., My Mother’s Story” on Facebook.  I admitted in the post that it was probably too soon to brag about this accomplishment. Was I ever right about that! My anticipation that the book would be available by the end of the month exhibited all the optimism of a rank amateur. I’d worked so hard on it, edited it over and over again, and was certain that when I opened the covers I would find this wonderful, perfect product. Wrong again! Not only did I spot errors, my proof reading friends found plenty as well. And though I appreciate all their suggestions other than correcting errors, I chose not to make some of the changes.

One that I did make was to number the pages, but had I known what a nightmare this would turn into for me, I might have said "Who needs page numbers? The book isn't that long." You see, the computer and I have a love-hate relationship. I love it, but it hates me. Did I mention that I am also in the process of learning a new computer, of moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1?  I’m certain that some nerdy kid somewhere with a serious disrespect of senior citizens is taking some twisted pleasure in my difficulty in making this switch.

But back to the insertion of page numbers. A normal person with a good working knowledge of Word might have done this with ease. Even I have done so in the past. Not so easy this time around. Two main problems: I didn’t want to number the title page and other front matter, and  I was switching the document from the old 7 to the new 8.1.  After enlisting the aid of friends, and spending untold hours on the various help sites on the internet I found that many of the things they suggested did not appear in any of my tool bars, but I finally got it done. So proud of myself, I was about to pop! Then I converted the file to a pdf for uploading to be printed. Where did that extra blank page come from? And better yet, how to get rid of it? You guessed it – the fun was just beginning. Other tries resulted in not one, but multiple blank pages that did not appear in the formatted Word document, but would find their way into the pdf. Or the numbers would start in places other than where I thought I put them.

Why did I continue to put myself through all this, rather than just scrap the idea of numbered pages? Sheer stubbornness. The more times it all went wrong the more determined I was that this was not going to get the best of me. Cross your fingers for me. An hour or so ago I uploaded what I hope is an edited version, complete with page numbers!

If it doesn't work, I'll probably snatch every grey hair out of my head trying again and again to fix it. Should that happen, and you see me running around completely bald-headed, please lend me a cute hat.