Outline numbering and justified text

[Sue Gully]

Hello,
I am temping at a company that creates a lot of large
documents (tenders and contracts) that have multiple
numbered headings and they also like to have their text
fully justified.
When I put in a heading (at whatever level) and then do a
shift&enter so I can put in the text without a new number
the heading will fully justify. If I highlight the
heading to make it left justified (so its not spread out)
it equally left justifies the following paragraph. If I
put in a normal carriage return all is fine except I am
then turning off the automatic heading numbering.
This company is using Word 97. Any clues?

Sue

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

When you press Enter after a heading, by default you get a paragraph in
Normal style. This is as it should be, though if you want the text below
headings to be justified, I would advise using Body Text instead and setting
that as the "following style" for your headings. This is what you should be
doing. You should not be trying to include all the document text in your
headings. I would guess that your main problem is a failure to understand
and use appropriate styles. See
http://www.microsoft.com/office/using/column14.asp and Shauna's articles at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/ApplyAStyle.html and
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/ModifyAStyle.html