Change all LISTNUM X to LISTNUM Y?

[Peyton Todd]

Hello. Since the explanation of my problem is rather long, I will ask my
question before I begin so you'll at least know where I'm going and not get
too bored! My question is: Is it possible to replace all instances of one
LISTNUM style by another, together with the references to them in a
Replace-All command?

(It does not appear to be possible in the Ctrl-H dialog unless there are
some special codes I can use to tell Word that what I want to replace is the
LISTNUM style of a certain name.)

Here's the situation:

I am a linguist writing articles in Microsoft Word. In my field, it is
customary to put parenthesized numbers beside sample sentences, e.g. (23)
blah blah blah, and then reference the sentence by number in the body of a
paragraph, e.g. 'as we see in sentence (23),...' Some time ago I was given
excellent help by Suzanne Barnhill and Margaret Aldis on how to do this, and
ultimately went with the following solution, using LISTNUM since I have to
place the utterance numbers anywhere (e.g. inside a cell of a table).

'what you need to do is set up the numbering format you need (using Format

Bullets and Numbering > Outline Numbering) and give it a LISTNUM field list

name (you do this in the More .... section of the customize dialog). Then
when you insert a LISTNUM field you will see the name you created in the
'List name' box - select this, check 'level in list' and set to 1.'

That works great. But now I have a new problem. Sometimes an example will
consist of a set of sentences, say (32) and then an 'a', 'b', and 'c' version
of it. (That is, the number will be in parentheses but the letters 'a', 'b',
etc. beside each sub-example will not be. However, It is customary to
reference such sentences in the body of the text as, e.g., (32a) or (32b). My
first solution was just to type the 'a' or 'b' etc. inside the parentheses
after inserting the reference. But the problem with that is, when I insert a
new numbered example somewhere, and press F9 to update all the references,
the little a's and b's disappear. I solved that by setting up a different
LISTNUM style which has ONLY a left parenthesis and number, using that style,
and just typing in the letter and right parenthesis afterwards. That works,
too. But NOW the problem is I have scads of numbered sentences and references
to them using the old system, and I am faced with the tedious task of
changing everyone. Isn't there some way I can do them all at once?

Oh, yes, and another question: If a LISTNUM style is out of date, how can I
delete it? Or if not, then how do I put the one I want at the top of the list
to pick from?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Margaret Aldis]

OK, let's see what we can do here.

Firstly, if you turn field codes on (ALT-F9) you'll be able to use all the
features of Find and Replace on the field text.

Secondly, you can make changes to LISTNUM definitions (List Templates - the
panes in the B&N dialog), but there are some kludges and bugs in this area
(in one version of Word, selecting a LISTNUM and then Format > Bullets and
Numbering crashes the app) so I suggest you test on copy documents until you
have things right. Basically you should be able to customize the List
Template that currently has your LISTNUM name to change its format, and that
should propagate to all fields using that name.

You can remove names from List Templates, but that doesn't seem to remove
them from the LISTNUM field dropdown list. You certainly can't remove List
Templates from a document, which can be an ongoing source of confusion and
corruption. However, if you paste the content of your document (or template)
to a new document (avoid copying the last paragraph mark) you'll probably
find *all* the names disappear. I think you will also find that only List
Templates applied to paragraphs (not those used solely in LISTNUM fields)
will be transferred, so you'll probably also lose your numbering scheme.
This should allow you to recreate the one numbering scheme you actually
want, anyway.

Hope this is some help - it's really a matter of careful experiment. Bear in
mind that if a LISTNUM field uses a name that no longer exists it will
revert to default behaviour, which is to pick up from a prior bullet or
numbering sequence - that might look OK in one place but then let you down
somewhere else!

 

[Peyton Todd]

Thanks, Margaret. ALT-F9 and replace via Ctrl-H works great. And just
changing the LISTNUM definitions in the B&N dialog ought to work, too, but
usually it does not. Almost always, whenever I try to change the Number
Format of an existing LISTNUM template, I get a message saying 'That name is
already taken, try another.' But not always. Once it did work. I have no idea
why. And sometimes, apparently, it halfway works. Right now my preferred
LISTNUM, named _leftparensnum, shows up as (n like I want, where n is the
number. However if you look at the number format in the B&N dialog it says
(n)), which is one I had put there just to experiment. And now: Oops! When I
go to the B&N dialog, choose that LISTNUM for editing, click Customize for
the next dialog, and then just do nothing but merely press OK and get out, it
stuffs a (n)) number into my document at the cursor position, and changes all
my previous (n numbers to (. That's right, a parenthesis followed by a dot.
I should mention that the bug you mentioned where it crashes Word if I have a
LISTNUM selected when I choose the B&N dialog, that bug does occur in my
edition of Word. ALT-F9 shows me that they are all still called
_leftparensnum underneath. However, when I press F9 to update the references
thay all go to the number 0. Argggh! Oh, yes, and another problem: sometimes
the results of my experimenting have led to extra LISTNUM templates, such as
(_leftparensnum) - a name with parentheses around it, although I never typed
the named that way. I did not even type (n) in the number format field very
recently.

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Did I mention there seemed to be a lot of kludges and bugs in this area ?
<g>

Thanks for the additional information - it all sounds tiresomely familiar.
If you've been 'experimenting' you will end up with a large number of List
Templates forever in your document, and with potentially conflicting
definitions in the Registry and Bullets and Numbering pane - including
multiple definitions apparently with the same name.

I would definitely reset the B&N panes and start again with a fresh document
in your case! Provided you don't poke too hard with a pointed stick LISTNUMs
can behave quite nicely <g>.