Big old bug in Word 2007 trying to number paragraphs in Normal style

S

steven

Hi,
I can't number normal style paragraphs in Word 2007. It freezes and
crashes. Here's what I'm doing. I open a .doc file. Go to the View
tab, right click on Normal Style in the ribbon, go to modify, go to
numbering... and hit the first on in the list. It freezes and runs my
cpu up to 100% fan whirling the whole thing. There is a work around.
You can highlight a paragraph and right click, go to numbering, and
then on the home tab right click on Normal Style and select the first
thing on that list that updates normal style to the selected
paragraph. This is a very surprising bug. One would think this program
has been put through the paces. Such a basic bug shouldn't be
happening at this stage.
 
B

Beth Melton

I don't encounter this issue. Does it happen with all styles? How large is
your document? What type of content do you have in your document? Images?
Tables? Other objects?

Also, I'm not sure why you would want to add numbering to the Normal style
since almost every single style is based on the Normal style including the
Header and Footer styles. So if you add a header or footer they'll end up
being numbered too. Depending on what you're actually trying to do it's best
to create a new style for this purpose. Now, if you are creating a style for
numbering then you should use a List style type, not a paragraph style type
(the Normal style is a paragraph style). This can be found in the New Style
dialog box, under "Style Type" or by clicking the arrow next to Multilevel
List on the Home tab and then clicking "Define new List Style". If you try
to combine a paragraph style with a list then you're likely to encounter
numbering issues such as in stopping/restarting numbering.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx
 
S

steven

I don't encounter this issue. Does it happen with all styles? How large is
your document? What type of content do you have in your document? Images?
Tables? Other objects?

Also, I'm not sure why you would want to add numbering to the Normal style
since almost every single style is based on the Normal style including the
Header and Footer styles. So if you add a header or footer they'll end up
being numbered too. Depending on what you're actually trying to do it's best
to create a new style for this purpose. Now, if you are creating a style for
numbering then you should use a List style type, not a paragraph style type
(the Normal style is a paragraph style). This can be found in the New Style
dialog box, under "Style Type" or by clicking the arrow next to Multilevel
List on the Home tab and then clicking "Define new List Style". If you try
to combine a paragraph style with a list then you're likely to encounter
numbering issues such as in stopping/restarting numbering.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVPhttps://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs
Click to expand...

Hi,
Thanx for the reply. 1) it only seems to happen with Normal style, 2)
it seems to happen with all .doc files (I think docx also crashes), 3)
the files are about 20 pages or so of just text. I'm using heading
styles throughout the documents. Thanx for the tip on using list
styles. I was using Powergrep and just wanted to have paragraphs
numbered temporarily so that I could compare what I had filtered. I
can certainly work around the problem. What surprises me is that this
is happening with Word at this stage in its development. I would have
thought if there were bugs they would be more difficult to generate.
I'm happy to send you a copy of the file if you want to try to
generate the error. I think the documents were originally composed in
2003. Perhaps there is something particular to my setup, but I doubt
it. I haven't really done any tweaking with Word other than setting up
styles. Oh I did download something to allow me to set saving to .doc
as the default. Hmm. I think that's called the "office compatibility
pack".
 
B

Beth Melton

As I noted, I don't encounter this issue. Perhaps you could email me an
example of a document that exhibits the behavior and I can test it?

Also, if you are using Office 2007 you don't need the Compatibility Pack
installed. The ability to save in the old file format is already integrated
in the applications. The Compatibility Pack is for those using previous
versions of Office 2007.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx
 
S

steven

As I noted, I don't encounter this issue. Perhaps you could email me an
example of a document that exhibits the behavior and I can test it?

Also, if you are using Office 2007 you don't need the Compatibility Pack
installed. The ability to save in the old file format is already integrated
in the applications. The Compatibility Pack is for those using previous
versions of Office 2007.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVPhttps://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx
Click to expand...

Hi,
Thanx again for the follow up. Is it true that you can set up Word
2007 to save to Word 2003 format as the default save file format
without this compatibility pack installed? I knew I could save the
file to the format as a non-default option. Could you confirm this
please? I'll send you a word document in which I'm getting this error.
It will be a gmail address and I'll put the title "big old bug" in the
subject line. Cheers,
Steven
 
B

Beth Melton

Thanks for the sample file, Steven. :)

I can duplicate what you describe using the document you sent me. BUT it's
still limited to your single document. I noted it also contains footnotes,
endnotes, and comments and have tried to duplicate the behavior using other
documents but was unable to do so. Additionally, using bullets is fine, the
error is in the numbering only.

After Word hangs the AutoRecovery version *does* have the numbering applied
and Word indicates it has repaired the file and you no longer encounter the
error. This indicates there is some type of corruption in the document. I
tried repairing the document prior making the modification but that didn't
work. I emailed you the repaired copy.

I can't say for certain this is a bug, since Word repairs the file, but if
it's okay I'll keep the document you sent me for future reference and pass
it along when I have an opportunity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx
 
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