Clitch free template.

[Les W via OfficeKB.com]

We have a template at work for documents. It is very inconsistant and
ubpredictable.

We only have a few levels: 1.0, 1.1and a bullet.

When you hit return, you rarely get the next expected number. Sometimes it
appears but not lined up with the others.

Does anyone know of a glitch-free template??

Maybe something on out server causes this.

Any ideas please.

Les Winberg

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

For trouble-free numbering, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html

 

[Doug Robbins]

See fellow MVP Shauna Kelly's website at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Les:

Doug has sent you to Shauna's pages: maybe I should say "why" he sent you
there

1) While STYLES copy from templates, the numbering *doesn't*.

2) If you enable "Automatically update on open" when attaching a template,
you will break your document's numbering every time.

3) If you do not switch off all the junk in Tools>Options>Edit... And in
Tools>AutoCorrect Options ... both your styles and your numbering will be
totally out of control. You need to ensure that ALL users make the
appropriate settings or numbering will be a disaster for their documents.

4) Numbering is LOCAL to each individual document. The only way to get
"corrrect" numbering into a document is to use a complex macro to put it
there. Having done that, the "automatically mess up your document" options
must all be off, or the numbering gets broken any time the user does
anything.

Now that I have shattered your hopes and dreams, may I suggest the following
way around this:


First, go to Shauna's pages and read everything she has on numbering,
carefully. Practice the technique she recommends until you are good at it.

Second, turn on your macro recorder while you set up a document the way
Shauna recommends.

Save that macro, and use that to apply numbering in each of your documents.

The recorded macro is a chore to record, and it's a real pain to edit, but
it uses a method of numbering definition that is quite reliable.

Note: Shauna's articles are quite exact, please be aware that if you leave
any steps out, all bets are off: this is one of the most complex features in
word, and everything depends on everything else

Hope this helps

We have a template at work for documents. It is very inconsistant and
ubpredictable.

We only have a few levels: 1.0, 1.1and a bullet.

When you hit return, you rarely get the next expected number. Sometimes it
appears but not lined up with the others.

Does anyone know of a glitch-free template??

Maybe something on out server causes this.

Any ideas please.

Les Winberg

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi John

I don't know how numbering is currently behaving in Word 2004, but I think
we can be a *little* more sanguine in Word 2002/2003 <g> :

1) While STYLES copy from templates, the numbering *doesn't*.

Numbered styles set up following Shauna's manual methods will copy intact
using the Organizer, but you need to copy three times to be sure to keep the
linking. It seems to be rather like the cascading styles situation.
(Actually, I suspect twice is enough - once for the individual styles and
once for the hierarchy to join up, but once for luck certainly doesn't
hurt.)

2) If you enable "Automatically update on open" when attaching a
template,
you will break your document's numbering every time.

Numbered styles set up following Shauna's manual methods come in fine in
Word 2002/2003. (For Word 97, numbered styles will import OK only if they've
been set up using the named List Template macro method.) However since I
never leave "Automatically update on open" set I can only speak for working
from the dialog (checking the box and OK-ing, then unchecking it) or using
VBA to update styles - I don't know if you would get a breakage if you
actually opened a document with the setting on.

4) Numbering is LOCAL to each individual document. The only way to get
"corrrect" numbering into a document is to use a complex macro to put it
there. Having done that, the "automatically mess up your document"
options
must all be off, or the numbering gets broken any time the user does
anything.

See above - once the style-numbering link is set up, styles can be now be
used to bring in numbering. However if you do use a macro, I would feel
safer using code that grabs or creates a List Template explicitly (by name
or via current linking) rather than recording Word's little dance with the
List Gallery - easier to make sense of and maintain too.

Copy and paste can still be a lottery, but my experience is that if Word
decides to change the number formatting (occasionally, even the style) on a
paste, you can at least now reliably get it back by using a Ctrl-Q or
failing that by updating styles from template.