[mea] WORD: how to fix numbered styles that won't restart numbering
- From: "Frazer, Cheri" <Cheri.Frazer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "MEA (E-mail)" <mea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 11:14:50 -0600
I just found out I've been using Word's Styles incorrectly for numbered
lists (Word 2000 on a PC). I followed the instructions below (copied from a
newsgroup) and all my numbers magically righted themselves.
In a nutshell, I've been defining the numbered list into my styles, when I
should have been doing the reverse.
Hope this helps someone else out there,
Cheri
(I found this from
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering/CureListNumbering.htm -under
"Resetting numbering not available." The answer comes from John McGhie
[message 5].)
-------------------------------------------
What has happened is that your letter-sequence and your number sequence are
members of two different lists. You can't reset the numbering because
there's nothing above it to reset to!
Chances are in the switch-over, your lists have got themselves defined as
two simple lists. The reason you can't "reset on higher" is that simple
lists have only one level: there is no "higher".
In Word 97, the default was a simple list, in Word 2000 it's an outline
list.
To do what you want, remove the numbering entirely, and replace it as an
Outline List (Outline Lists have nine levels).
You need to define your styles into your numbered list, not your numbered
list into your styles. It is best if you do write a macro to do this. It
needs to be a fairly fierce macro...
But to begin with, I suggest that you do the following:
1) Select the text with the bad numbering (all of it)
2) Use Format>Bullets and Numbering to set the numbering to None. Now go
through all the numbered samples on the dialog and hit the RESET button on
each one. This sets them back to their factory defaults.
3) Use Format>Style>Modify>Format>Numbering to choose an Outline Numbered
numbering scheme. Ignore the appearance of the document at the moment:
we'll fix it later.
4) Hit the Customise button. This opens you up to a dialog from which you
can attach your styles to the numbering scheme. First you have to click
"MORE" on this dialog until the narrow column of Levels appears down the
left-hand side of the dialog.
5) for Level 1, choose a style
6) Change the Level to 2 and choose a DIFFERENT style
7) Change the Level to 3 and choose a different style
Work your way down until you have defined all your numbering styles as
levels of this numbered list (all the ones you use: I would be surprised if
you go down more than four or five levels).
Now OK your way out to the last dialog box. There you will find an Add to
Template box. Check it and OK.
8) Hold down your shift key and choose Save All from the File menu.
This saves both the document and the template. The style definitions are
saved in both places.
9) Now you will need to go through and tidy up the margins and indents on
your styles using Format>Style>Modify>Paragraph... For each style. Don't
forget to check Add to Template.
10) Save All again when you have finished.
11) Now you will note that every selected paragraph is numbered as though
it were a top-level item. Select the paragraphs that should be level 2's
and click the Demote button on the toolbar.
If you have done all of the above correctly, this will apply your level 2
style and change the number format for you.
Just to re-cap: You define the styles to be part of the Outline Numbered
list, rather than defining the numbering to be part of the styles. Then you
set the level of each paragraph in the outline list and it will
automatically receive the correct style and the correct numbering.
It's not an ideal way to work, but it's the way Word does work.
One more thing to check: Go to Tools>Templates and Add-Ins and make sure
that "Automatically update styles on open" is NOT checked. If it is, it
will blow away the numbering in the document each time you open it.
This may be enough. Your document should now hold its numbering correctly.
If it doesn't, come back here and we will show you how to do this in VBA so
it stays right. The VBA mechanism is a fair bit of work: try to avoid it if
you can.
Hope this helps
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