Hi Alan:
Oh dear... I can see we're going to be here for a while... Are you sitting
comfortably?
Let me make some preliminary remarks:
1) You want it to work "properly". It doesn't! Can we go home now?
2) You want to use "Automatically update styles on open" when you attach a
template. You can't! It buggers your outline numbering every time. Can we
go home yet?
3) Styles, and List Templates, are not the same thing. Microsoft keeps the
whole concept of List Templates a big secret, because it's so embarrassing.
Both are collections of formatting. Both may have names (although a List
Template doesn't have to have a name). Both may be paragraph properties
(although a style doesn't have to be). And both have some properties in
common (indents being one). But a style and a list template are not the
same thing: they are often applied to different parts of the text, and
where they overlap, their properties conflict. That's the problem you have.
4) Both styles and list templates can exist in a document or a template.
When a document is created from a template, the styles, the list templates,
and any association between them, are copied into the document. After that,
the document makes no further reference to its template. Unless you force
it to.
5) If you force a reference to a template using Tools>Templates and
Ad-ins>Attach>Automatically update, you first become aware that a style is
not a list template and vice-versa. The objects are copied from the
template independently at the moment of document open. Because they are
copied independently, any link between a style and a list template is broken
each time the document opens.
So the beginning of sorting this mess out is to turn off Automatically
Update.
The most critical thing to understand is that a style must exist in a
document before it can be applied to text. You can't have a style in a
template applied to text. All styles in use are local to the document.
Same with List Templates.
Like styles, List Templates must be local to the document to work.
To create an Outline for Headings, you would use the built-in Word styles
Heading 1 through Heading 9, one for each level. You would also use only
ONE List Template. There are three kinds of list template: those that
format only Bullets, those that format only Numbers, and those that format
multilevel structures. These last are called Outline List Templates.
An Outline list template has nine child "levels". To use numbering
successfully, you must:
1) Customise nine styles.
2) Associate each of those styles to the SAME list template.
3) Associate each level of the list template with only ONE of the styles
4) Format each paragraph style the way you want it except for the hanging
indent
5) Format each level of the list template to correctly position your
numbers.
6) Apply numbering ONLY by applying styles.
If you do all that, your numbering will work and be relatively stable.
Now it's time to do some reading: Shauna has one of the best introductions
to the problem in her Bullets and Numbering section, here:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/
I have a more in-depth article here:
http://www.word.mvps.org/faqs/numbering/WordsNumberingExplained.htm
Ignore the differences between Mac Word and PC Word: for Numbering they are
very similar. The PC has even more features that don't work that we advise
you to avoid
Eventually, you are going to need to know how to use VBA to set up or fix
stable numbering. When you do, come back, we're still working on that
article.
In the meantime, if you work EXACTLY the way Shauna says, you will solve
today's problem
Cheers
Word X version 10.1.6 in Mac OS X 10.3.7.
I have a document which uses an attached template to define its styles.
In the template the heading styles are defined as outline numbered with
all levels beginning at the left margin. Each has a hanging indent and a
matching tab stop. It all appears normal in the template.
If I create a new blank document and attach the template, all the
headings behave as expected.
But if I open my document and attach the template to it (to pick up new
styles added to the template, for example), all the headings suddenly
indent by about an inch per heading level, with a hanging indent of .25
inches and a tab stop of .25 inches.
I can fix this temporarily by updating all the styles in the document,
but the next time that I attach the template the unwanted indentation
returns.
There are two main style hierarchies, one for headings and one for body
text variations, and each has a stand-alone base style. The style Normal
is not used anywhere in the document, nor are any of the styles based on
it.
The template normal.dot in the MS Office Templates folder does not have
any similar indents in its heading styles.
So where do they come from, and how can I get rid of them permanently?
--
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
