Hi Norm:
Yeah, OK, I will take pity on you
The full explanation is in the Help, but I need you to be a little
pro-active about actually using the Search capability in the Word Help and
reading all of the topics it finds.
Some things you need to know before you start:
1) Word's numbering is based on paragraphs. Nothing else can have list
numbering
2) There are several kinds of numbering. The easiest to use is Outline
List Numbering, but it is also the most complex.
3) Word's numbering is a tagged list, similar to HTML
<Begin Number List>
1 Para
2 para
3 para
4 para
<restart numbering>
1 para
2 para
3 para
<End number list>
4) There can be multiple lists in a document, but for each "kind" of
Outline List, there can be only one in a document.
So: The built-in Heading Styles automatically join a list named "Headings"
if you add numbering to them. There can be only one of these in a document.
Numbered "paragraphs" which are not headings can all be members of the same
list. If they are, everything works well and the numbering will restart.
Or they can each be a member of a different list. If they are, numbering
will not restart and the options are greyed out.
That's what has happened to you. Here are the instructions for sorting it
out:
1) Decide whether you are using Paragraph Numbering or Heading Numbering.
Paragraph numbering is numbering that has a number on each consecutive
paragraph and no paragraphs in-between that have no numbering. (That's
simplistic, you can have exceptions).
Heading numbering is where you have numbers on the heading paragraphs in the
document, but not on the body text paragraphs.
2) To get numbering to work and be stable, it MUST be applied with a style.
A "Style" is simply a collection of formatting. The font, spacing, and
numbering are all collected in a bucket. Styles you apply have
human-readable names so you know which is which.
Hint: If you ever need to create a style, name it after the kind of
paragraph you apply it to, not the formatting it contains. So: "Body
Text", not "Arial 12 points". With modern versions of Word, it is unlikely
that you will need to create a style, styles for almost every purpose are
already built-in.
Modern versions of Word apply all formatting using styles: there is no such
thing as formatting "codes" in a Word document, only styles.
3) Work through your document from top to bottom and apply the correct
style to EVERY paragraph. Completely disregard the numbers that appear,
just get the style names right. You can't fix the numbers until all the
paragraphs you want numbered have the correct styles applied, because it is
the style that determines which of the document's lists the paragraph
belongs to, and what kind of numbering is applied to the entire list.
When you apply the styles, it is ESSENTIAL to ensure that you have the whole
paragraph selected when you apply the style, so turn on your Show/Hide
button so that you can see what you are doing. If you get this wrong, you
get paragraphs with "partially applied styles", which creates a problem that
will take you literally days to find and fix.
-- Paragraphs that are headings should have one of the built-in Heading
styles named "Heading 1", "Heading 2", etc applied.
-- Paragraphs that are members of a numbered list should have the built-in
style "List Number" applied.
-- Paragraphs that are "neither" should have a style that is not one of the
above. I use the built-in style "Body Text" for this. Some people use
"Normal" style, but it's best not to do this, it makes things extremely
complicated later on. Treat "Normal" style as a "Label" that says "This
paragraph has not been formatted yet" and your documents will be a hell of a
lot easier to manage.
Since you are working in Word 2004, you have the "Select All Like This"
command available to you. Read the Help topic " Select all text with the
same formatting" to see how. If you have been consistent in your document
formatting, this works well and saves you hours. If you haven't, you now
have a good reason to learn to use styles -- it makes your formatting
totally consistent
Once you have the correct style applied to each paragraph, you can now begin
to sort out your numbering.
Click in one of your numbered paragraphs, and choose
Format>Style>Modify>Format>Numbering...
Notice I begin with "Format>STYLE..." and NOT "Format>Bullets and
Numbering...". This is the essential secret of the whole game
* If you use Format>Style, you change the style definition and every
paragraph in the document with that style applied will automatically adopt
your change. You are actually changing the formatting bucket that is poured
over each paragraph with that style.
* If you use Format>Bullets and Numbering, you are changing only the "list"
that the selected paragraph is a member of. The first thing that happens is
that Word automatically creates a new, hidden, style to apply to that list
so that other paragraphs in the document are not affected. Now this will
rapidly drive you insane: you *wanted* all of the paragraphs in the document
to get the change, but because you use the wrong entry point, Word acts to
*protect* all of the other paragraphs in the document from your change,
because it thinks you want the change to apply only locally to the selected
list.
Once you get the hang of these concepts, you are in a much better position
to make sense of all of the information on numbering that appears in the
Help. In the Help, you will soon find that Word has several other ways of
applying numbering. Most of these were very silly ideas, produced as
Microsoft became increasingly desperate to make numbering "easy to use".
They ended up making it "hard to understand".
One thing we, the MVPs, have been trying to tell Microsoft for some years
is: Users cannot understand things they don't know about. Users who want
to use numbering need to know how it works and how it got applied. Until
they do, they cannot control it, and until they control it, they can't use
it." We are slowly being heard: Word 2004 is a lot better, once you learn
to work your way through Tools>AutoCorrect>Autoformat as you type and turn
OFF everything in the top and bottom section of that dialog. That gets you
back in control, so when numbering happens you kknow who caused it, and
which list your paragraphs belong to.
Read Shauna Kelly's excellent articles on how to use basic numbering:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/
I wrote a more technical treatment here:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/WordsNumberingExplainedContent.htm
Cheers
Appreciate the suggestion but....
The Word Help tips don't do anything plus the tips say to use the
selections "Restart Numbering" and "Continue previous list" but they are
grayed out and thus can't be used.
BTW, My list is just numbered paragraphs in Word. If that makes a
difference. It was easy to do with Word 5.1a.
Thanks.
--
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
