G'day "Erik Jonker" <
[email protected]>,
on the surface this seems all screwed up mate. So, here's a wee guide
to Life, The Universe and List Templates. This gets very tricky! Bear
with me, and do ask away if you get lost. A number of experts hang out
here to teach you guys this stuff and hopefully it will improve this
article.
Definitions
B&N Bullets & Numbering. Can also specifically mean the B&N dialogs.
LL List Level. There are 9 list levels in an LT. A LL holds all the
List Formatting.
LT List Template. An LT is used as the container for a hierarchical
set of LLs. This enables numbering to restart upon a higher instance.
Background
MS have done a pretty damn good job implementing lists over the years.
You have to remember that this is all legacy code developed as the
whole world worked out how to create documents. Whilst it is easy for
the author to poke fun at the obvious mistakes, these weren't obvious
at the time the ARCHITECTURE was designed. The history of RTF
development is reasonably well documented for the purposes of further
investigation if required.
Not only is this all legacy based, but we have a "One size fits all"
system that has been pushed and prodded to provide interfaces for all
levels of users. The same system used by Steve Hudson, Senior
Technical Writer used to punch out cross-referenced, marked up and
linked to hell and back documents of thousands of pages, is used by
Joe Average the farmer to write a letter to his bank manager pleading
for more money for 6 very good reasons.
List Template Basics
Most users think of their lists in terms of the B&N settings via the
GUI. This only of use for the
The numbering for each heading level is stored in a different list
level (LL) of the list template (LT). These LT settings are revealed
in the Bullets and Numbering (B&N) dialogs.
For outline numbered headings, you should have one LT for the entire
set of headings. Each heading is then linked to the corresponding LL
inside the LT.
Advanced List Template usage
Each LL has a property called Linked Style. This is the style it will
attach itself to IN THE FUTURE. It is hard-coded into setting the
style. Word looks through the LTs in the document and the local B&N
gallery settings and tries to find a LL in an LT that matches our new
style. If it finds it - it applies it. Herein lies 98% of our
numbering problems. It is NOT a property of the style, even though the
hard-coding makes it ACT like such. Technically speaking it is a
reverse relational table. The LL's have an attached Style, NOT the
Style has an attached LL, yet most of the looking for comes from the
It gets worse. Much worse.
If you don't specifically give your LT a name (from the More>>> part
of the customize B&N dialog) Word has a rather poor substitute to make
up for it - it simply uses the offset. Unfortunately, another MS
development arm went and fixed various list template breakage problems
by spawning new list templates. In practical terms, your paragraphs,
with their lovely styles, know nothing about this. You end up with a
dozen referenced broken list templates and all hell breaks loose.
So, in detail, your paragraphs with lists are also ListParagraphs.
This extra collection links back to the real paragraph
contains a hard coded offset back to your LT
Steve Hudson - Word Heretic
Want a hyperlinked index? S/W R&D? See WordHeretic.com
steve from wordheretic.com (Email replies require payment)
Erik Jonker reckoned:
