Restart chapter numbering?

[bodsham]

So I want to restart auto chapter numbering for different sections of the book. I insert a section break. I go to the first subsequent chapter heading. I go to Format Bullets and Numbering and click restart numbering. Nothing changes. I right click on the chapter heading and there's a restart numbering option there. Again, it does nothing. This is a really simple thing. Why does it have to be so hard/impossible? Shouldn't it be capable of restarting chapter numbering after a section break?
By the way there is a chapter numbering option in the numbers bit too. But if I choose that it also adds a chapter number to the level 1 heading used for the section heading - so that's unusable too.

 

[bodsham]

I have Word 2008. I would like to restart chapter numbering in the separate sections of the book. So that I can use the outlining features the book sections are heading 1 and the chapters are heading 2. I insert a new section to mark the new book section. The chapter numbers in this version appear to be based as lists and attached to outline headings (level 2). They work just fine from the beginning. But the restart numbering command doesn't change anything - it just reverts back to . Weirdly enough if I export the same document out to Pages and restart the numbering there I can then reimport the document to Word and the chapters restart. Bit of a performance though... and there is nothing in the Word documentation about this, well not much anyway.
I can reproduce this in a minute by creating an outline of two level one headings with some level 2 headings underneath, then trying to restart the numbering after the second level 1 heading. Just doesn't work.

 

[bodsham]

Thanks but that guidance doesn't really apply to Word 2008 - everything is very different. Nor does it apply to Word 2007 either where it's changed too (and the help file doesn't even have a reference to 'restart numbering').
I have been using Word on the Mac since it came out in 1984 and I have to say it gets less useful and more cryptic with every single release, and this one is no exception. Perhaps Microsoft just don't expect people to use it to write books.
The joke is that if I pull the same doc file into Pages and change the chapter numbering for each section there then re export it out to Word... Word appears to recognise the restarts and works fine. If Pages just had some decent sort of outlining or document map I would abandon Word altogether frankly. I don't know if this is a bug or just plain bad software but I spent half a day trying to do something very simple yesterday and failed. In Pages it takes thirty seconds.

 

[John McGhie]

Well, I use Shauna's method exactly, in both Word 2004 and in Word 2008.

The key to it is that you must use one of the built-in Heading-series styles
to format the Chapter title, and that you must add the numbering to the
style as described by Shauna.

You can, of course, customise anything else about the style to your
requirements.

Since I have done that in my Normal template, every file I create has it
happen automatically.

Cheers

Thanks but that guidance doesn't really apply to Word 2008 - everything is
very different. Nor does it apply to Word 2007 either where it's changed too
(and the help file doesn't even have a reference to 'restart numbering').
I have been using Word on the Mac since it came out in 1984 and I have to say
it gets less useful and more cryptic with every single release, and this one
is no exception. Perhaps Microsoft just don't expect people to use it to write
books.
The joke is that if I pull the same doc file into Pages and change the chapter
numbering for each section there then re export it out to Word... Word appears
to recognise the restarts and works fine. If Pages just had some decent sort
of outlining or document map I would abandon Word altogether frankly. I don't
know if this is a bug or just plain bad software but I spent half a day trying
to do something very simple yesterday and failed. In Pages it takes thirty
seconds.

--
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Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[bodsham]

In desperation I deleted both normal templates (for 2008 and 2004) and I can now make it work very easily simply through the bullets and numbering facility in the formatting palette. Thanks for all your help. Boy is Word hard at simple things sometimes....

 

[John McGhie]

I don't understand??

Three people told you a simple method of making this work that would have
taken you about 15 or 20 seconds.

So you chose to use a really complicated way that trashed all your saved
auto texts and customisations?

Were you actually reading the replies to your post?

{Mystified...}

In desperation I deleted both normal templates (for 2008 and 2004) and I can
now make it work very easily simply through the bullets and numbering facility
in the formatting palette. Thanks for all your help. Boy is Word hard at
simple things sometimes....

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[bodsham]

The previous suggestions just didn't work. Trashing the normal templates did, and you don't need to do anything complicated about setting up numbers against styles either.

Where's the mystification?