Outline numbering - text before number help

[Diana]

I have a good knowledge of outline numbering, but I'm
stumped on this one.

I want to put text in front of my first level and I know
how to do this. However, I don't want the "text" portion
to be included with the next level ... just the number.

Example ... if the first level displays as "Section 1"
(where Section is the text and 1 is the number), how do I
get the next level to only include the level number, but
not include the text to display as: 1.1.

I'd appreciate any help.

 

[Anon]

if the first level displays as "Section 1"
(where Section is the text and 1 is the number), how do I
get the next level to only include the level number, but
not include the text to display as: 1.1.

Diana, I don't know what version of Word you're using, but with
Word 2002 it is easy to do what you want:

1. Use a List number style, then modify it. (Format/Styles and
Formatting, then right click the box with the active style, and
left click Modify. Don't elect to change the template. Click
Format, then Numbering.)

2. In the numbering dialog, click Outline Numbering, then
Customize.

3. For level one, just type "Section" (without quote marks) in
front of the numeral '1.' Click to see the second level, and it
should read '1.1.'

WFM, anyway....

 

[Diana]

Anon,
Thanks ... and by the way, I "am" using version XP, so I was hoping you're
words were true..
I did as you mentioned, but before I saw your posting (I can find my way
around outlines, except for this current obstacle). Unfortunately, the
result for me is that not only the number is carried into the next level. I
can't get it to not include the word "Section". I don't know how to stop
that.

In my attempt to overcome it, I created the Section level by itself. Then I
had a different problem. I create another outline level, using a first
level of 1.1 ... but that doesn't work (of course), because there's no
source for including a previous level. Hence ... it never switches to
represent paragraphs in in section 2 ... it simply continues as 1.x.

If this doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try to reword.
I'll try to illustrate what's happening

Section 1 (centred, bold, larger)
1.1 blah blah (left just, regular font)
1.1.1 blah blah (as above)
1.1.1.1 blah blah (indented, justified, regular font)
1.2 blah blah
1.2.1 blah blah

Section 2
1.3 blah blah (want it to be 2.1)
1.4
1.5
Section 3
1.6
1.7

If I set it up with Section as part of the same outline scheme in the first
level ...
Section 1
Section 1.1 (don't want "section" to display_
Section 1.2 (as above)
etc.

if the first level displays as "Section 1"
(where Section is the text and 1 is the number), how do I
get the next level to only include the level number, but
not include the text to display as: 1.1.

Diana, I don't know what version of Word you're using, but with
Word 2002 it is easy to do what you want:

1. Use a List number style, then modify it. (Format/Styles and
Formatting, then right click the box with the active style, and
left click Modify. Don't elect to change the template. Click
Format, then Numbering.)

2. In the numbering dialog, click Outline Numbering, then
Customize.

3. For level one, just type "Section" (without quote marks) in
front of the numeral '1.' Click to see the second level, and it
should read '1.1.'

WFM, anyway....

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I can't imagine what you're doing wrong. If you go to Format | Bullets and
Numbering and choose the Outline Numbered tab, you will see that the first
and last panes on the bottom row of the default List Gallery have numbering
similar to what you want, and neither of them repeats the text of the first
level in lower levels. Indeed, pane 4 (first on the bottom row) has
different text for the first and second levels. Are you *sure* you're
setting this up exactly as specified in
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html ? Note that
you must associate a different style with each level, not try to use the
same style for all levels.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Diana]

Hi Suzanne,
I've definitely set up each level to associate with the appropriate style
level, but just to be sure I'll give it another double check. I've worked
with it a fair bit and maybe I've been too close to it to see it, for the
last couple of days. I'll give it another try, later today and let you know
how I make out.
Diana

I can't imagine what you're doing wrong. If you go to Format | Bullets and
Numbering and choose the Outline Numbered tab, you will see that the first
and last panes on the bottom row of the default List Gallery have numbering
similar to what you want, and neither of them repeats the text of the first
level in lower levels. Indeed, pane 4 (first on the bottom row) has
different text for the first and second levels. Are you *sure* you're
setting this up exactly as specified in
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html ? Note that
you must associate a different style with each level, not try to use the
same style for all levels.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Anon]

Note that
you must associate a different style with each level, not try to
use the same style for all levels.

Not really. If one uses a list numbering style, modifies the
numbering, clicks the outline numbering tab, and then modifies
each level appropriately, then the result is what Diana is looking
for (or should be) and there's no need to mess around with
multiple styles.

Or did you mean something else by your statement which I quoted?

 

[Diana]

Ok ... it's all working the way I want it.

I'm not sure what I did differently. Maybe just not working with it for a
couple of days did the trick. However, there is one additional step that I
did ... I clicked "reset" (in the outline numbering dialogue box) to try and
clear the junk outlines. I inherited the document with a gazillion styles
in it.

By the way ... if someone knows a way to stop the addition of every possible
version of a modified style in the style listing ... I'm all ears.
Everytime a word is bolded or coloured (or some direct formating occurs), a
new style is created and listed and I don't want them. As I mentioned, I
inherited this document and there were probably 50 styles listed. I'm
using, maybe only 10 styles. It takes forever to apply styles that I don't
really want to assign a keystroke to.
Thanks.
Diana

Note that
you must associate a different style with each level, not try to
use the same style for all levels.

Not really. If one uses a list numbering style, modifies the
numbering, clicks the outline numbering tab, and then modifies
each level appropriately, then the result is what Diana is looking
for (or should be) and there's no need to mess around with
multiple styles.

Or did you mean something else by your statement which I quoted?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Those aren't styles, they're "formatting." On the Edit tab of Tools |
Options, clear the box for "Keep track of formatting."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

List styles were what I rather suspected of causing the problem (or at least
the use of a single style, plus Promote/Demote). It has not been established
to any MVP's satisfaction that list styles serve any useful purpose simply
because the list levels *can't* be associated with specific styles.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you're struggling with other aspects of Word 2002, you might want to look
at http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/CustomizingWord2002.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Apparently, you were talking about *list styles*, whereas
Suzanne was referring to *paragraph styles*. List styles
have the same problem as does direct numbering formatting:
there is no way to see which numbering level is applied to
text. In contrast, if you apply outline numbering by using
paragraph styles, it's easy to keep track of numbering
(and also to troubleshoot any problems!), since you can
always tell which style is applied to a paragraph.

Stefan

 

[Anon]

List styles
have the same problem as does direct numbering formatting:
there is no way to see which numbering level is applied to
text. In contrast, if you apply outline numbering by using
paragraph styles, it's easy to keep track of numbering
(and also to troubleshoot any problems!), since you can
always tell which style is applied to a paragraph.

This may be getting a little far from the original topic, but it
might pertain to the issue you're discussing above. In any event,
perhaps you know how to help with this problem:

I modified the heading styles for a document. Each heading style
is a 'number' type style (under format/numbering, the 'number'
tab, not 'outline numbering'). Although the heading styles before
I modified them restarted after each higher level, the newly
modified styles do not restart. I cannot find any toggle to get
them to restart while also keeping them as separate styles.

What am I missing??

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Most likely problem is that you modified the numbering from Style > Modify
for these lower level styles, and lost the linkage with the higher level
styles (the original and modified styles are now not part of the same
numbering sequence.)

See Shauna Kelly's detailed instructions at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

And note that you *must* use outline numbering (not just the Numbered tab)
to set up a series of styles if you want them to restart properly.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Anon]

And note that you *must* use outline numbering (not just the
Numbered tab) to set up a series of styles if you want them to
restart properly.

Would it then be best practice to *always* use outline numbering for
*all* purposes, regardless of whether a hierarchy will be needed? In
other words, would it be better from a template management viewpoint
simply to delete the various numbering schemes in normal.dot
(assuming that's where they live) in favor of an outline numbering
style?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There are those who maintain that, beginning in Word 2000, all numbering
*is* outline numbering (under the hood) regardless of which tab you use to
set it up. You certainly get a lot more control over formatting if you use
the Outline Numbering tab (which, as you've probably discovered, can be used
for bullets as well as numbers). So yes, it's probably sensible to use
"outline" numbering most of the time, though I confess I sometimes use the
quick-and-dirty "plain" numbering that comes with the List Number style when
I'm pretty sure I won't have more than one numbering level.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Margaret Aldis]

I believe this is true. If you set up a bullet list from the bullet tab, and
then use the following code in the VBA immediate window

MsgBox Selection.Range.ListFormat.ListTemplate.OutlineNumbered

The message that appears shows 'True', and that also fits with what you see
if you record a macro of the set up - you'll see you are defining the first
level
(ListLevels(1) ) of a list template. You can also see in this code all
formatting information - in Word 97, which didn't offer separate text and
tab positions in the dialog, this revealed very clearly where those Jason
tabs were coming from <g>.

Funnily enough, you can create a single level (OutlineNumbered=False) list
template using VBA, but that isn't what the Bullets and Numbering dialog
uses, it seems.

Armed with this information, it seems to me that if you are setting up a
single level list you are free to use any of the tabs, whichever gives you
the easiest dialog settings for the customization you want. (The bullet tab
makes it a bit easier to choose a standard bullet character, for instance -
I sometimes record code from here as a lazy way of picking up the symbol I
want to set up later (via VBA) in an multi-level list.)

If you want to use the Increase/Decrease indent button, however, I think it
does make sense to set up the hierarchy explicitly using Outline Numbered as
otherwise you can get some quite 'surprising' effects on items with a
'single level' bullet list.

 

[Anon]

(The bullet tab
makes it a bit easier to choose a standard bullet character, for
instance - I sometimes record code from here as a lazy way of
picking up the symbol I want to set up later (via VBA) in an
multi-level list.)

Margaret, other than using Word as a front end to display or enter
data into some other system module, why do use VBA at all? Behind
my question is this: most ppl I know who are adept at word
processors think in terms of scripting code, but I have never
needed it (I think). I'm wondering what I'm missing out on and if
it's worth my time to learn the language(s).

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi Anon

I guess there are as many answers to this question as Word users, but the
main reasons I 'got involved' with VBA were

Macros let you automate certain behaviour, and, often more to the point,
define exactly what that behaviour should be. So VBA gives you greater reach
in customizing Word and making it work the way you want it to. Since Word
and I often disagree, I like to be able to say who's boss <g>.

I find the Word object model a helpful logical structure to hang my
understanding on, so I often approach what can and can't be done in terms of
which properties and methods belong to which objects (paragraphs, sections,
list templates, documents, templates ...), rather than where things appear
(or don't appear) in the user interface.

As far as numbering is concerned, I first started setting numbering up using
VBA because it was very considerably more reliable done that way in Word 97.
I also find it a handy way to tweak list format parameters during design,
without generating hundreds of list templates you can't delete.