Hi Norm:
I was really hoping you wouldn't ask this one
No, it is NOT a "Beginner Question"
It is the most complex question
there is about Word
If you have gotten this far, you are entering
"Documentation Professional" territory. Welcome to the deep end
OK: Let's get started. Sadly, NONE of this stuff is in the Word Help.
This is the only place you can read it.
First, let's describe how this mechanism works. You need to know this, so
pay attention, there will be a test tomorrow
In Microsoft Word, "bullets" and "numbering" are the same thing (exactly the
same thing!). Word simply remembers not to try to increment bullets.
That "thing" is a "List". There is another type of numbering, "Field-based
numbering", but it is rare, so let's keep this simple and ignore it for now.
A List has a "name" which we call a "List Style". A List Style is simply
the label we use so we can tell which list we are using. Word sticks the
label on a container that contains all the formatting for the list. So the
answer to your question is going to be "create a List Style", but first we
need to explain how it all works, so that you can do that.
To you and I, it appears that there are three kinds of list: Bullets,
Numbers, and Outline. In fact, they are simply different views of the same
thing: a "List". The Outline lists display nine levels and are most often
used for heading numbering. The others have only one level and are usually
employed for paragraph bullets or numbering.
The fundamental unit of a List is the "paragraph". All list numbering is
tied to paragraphs: it cannot exist any other way.
Word's List mechanism works very similar to the HTML numbering mechanism, so
if you know HTML, you already know what I am about to tell you.
To begin, Word places tags in the text to mark the beginning and end of the
List. These tags can enclose the entire document, or they can enclose just
a few paragraphs (even a single paragraph).
The first tag tells us what kind of list it is: either "Un-ordered"
(bullets) or "Ordered" (numbered). In Word, that tag also contains a label
that tells us "which" list this is (because there can be several hundred
lists in a document). It does this by naming the list. In the user
interface, we see this as the "List" name. (Just remember that: I will come
back to it in a minute.)
Within those tags, each paragraph that is a member of a list contains a
"List Item" tag that says that this paragraph is a member of a list, and
that tag contains the name of the List that the paragraph is a member of.
Let me just underline that: a paragraph may have an "LI" tag on it, which
makes it a member of a list, or it may not. So in any given set of
paragraphs, some may be members, and some paragraphs may not.
An Outline list can have non-list paragraphs in the middle, the others can
not. To see which paragraphs are a member of a particular list, click once
on the bullet or number at the front of one of the paragraphs. A gray
highlight will appear on the bullet or number of all the other paragraphs
that are a member of the same list. Remember this: when you come to fix the
"random numbering" problems, the first thing you do is click on a number to
see which paragraphs are a member of each list.
One of the most voracious "traps for young players" is that a document may
have two numbered lists: "Norm's List" and "John's List". The two lists
may look exactly the same. If you look in a car park, you may see two green
Fords. Both exactly the same model, each equally bad: but one of them is
mine and you can't have it! The other is yours and my key won't fit!
When the numbering is wrong on just 'some' of the paragraphs, that's because
they are members of different lists. The cure is to use the Format Painter
to copy the formatting from one of the paragraphs that is correct, and click
the paragraphs that are wrong: the List tags will be copied to the wrong
paragraphs and the numbering will instantly come right!
OK, now we have covered the structure of a list so you know how these things
work, we can now set about answering your question. PLEASE don't expect
yourself to get all of this in one sitting: this is the most complex part of
Word there is: it took me months to understand all of this stuff... It does
NOT help that Microsoft tried to hide all this complexity from users, so we
spend months stumbling around in the dark, navigating by feel. It's like
trying to work out what is in a cellar with the lights turned out: you crack
your shins a lot...
So: To set up ANY kind of numbering, Word must first have a List Style. If
you don't create it, Word will create it for you. Which is a real pain,
because Word hides the List Styles that it creates from you, so if you allow
this to happen, you will get very sore shins because the lights will never
come on! Always create List Styles yourself, so you know what they're
called!
Before you can create a List Style, you must have a paragraph style for each
level in the list. For paragraph numbering, often there is only one level.
But for legal numbering, there may be up to nine levels:
S1.A.I.(1.a.i).[1.A]
The paragraph styles you use in a list must NOT be used for anything else in
this document. So you CAN NOT use Normal or Body Text in List Styles: if
you do, all hell breaks loose: you get numbers breaking out like measles all
over "everything".
Word has a set of built-in styles created exactly for this purpose, named
List Number through List Number 9. They are all hidden until they are used
in a document, and List Number 5 through 9 do not even exist until you use
them. This is the same concept as a "Scotch and Soda": we know there is
such a thing because we have seen them on TV, but you do not HAVE one until
I pour you one. With the List-series of styles, we know they can be in a
document, but until we use them, they won't be there.
Create a blank "trash" document we can play with, and follow me through from
here, so you can see what I am talking about. The following explanation
depends on the document not containing any existing lists, so please create
a blank one.
Go into Format>Style, and find the List Number style. Remember I said it
will be hidden until it is used? In the Formatting Palette or in the Format
Style dialog, look for the "List:" drop-down and change it to "All Styles",
otherwise you won't be able to see the List Number series of styles.
Set the font and paragraph spacing properties to your tastes. Don't bother
setting the tabs and left indents, they will be inherited from the List
Style when we create it.
To answer your question, you need only one style: List Number. But while
you are in there, I would set up List Number 2, List Number 3, and List
Number 4, because you may use them later.
OK your way out.
Go back to Format>Style and choose "New Style". In the dialog that appears,
change the Type to "List" and make the Name something you will remember.
Let's call it "Norm Numbering". In the bottom left of the dialog, check the
box that says "Add to Template". We're going to do a lot of work on this
thing, so let's make sure we save it.
The Formatting Palette is just a disaster for doing this kind of thing, it
doesn't show you enough and makes these very common style operations
impossibly difficult, so I always close it and use Format>Style to work on
Styles. Keeping the Formatting Palette closed has the added benefit of
making Word behave better.
If you are using Format>Style... You can find a style by simply hitting the
first letter of its name: the list will scroll to that point and you can see
what you want.
So: We are in the Modify Style dialog, the name has been set to "Norm
Numbering", the Type is List. Set "Start At" to "1". Unless you really do
want to start numbering at some other number: and trust me, you DON'T!.
Make this a rule" "Start At" is always set to "1", never change it.
Because when you change it, ALL of the lists using this List Style will
start at whatever you set, which can be extremely disconcerting in a
document containing hundreds of lists.
Set "Apply formatting to:" to "1st Level".
If we were making a multi-level list, for example for Headings or for Legal
Numbering, we would do all of the following for each level that we want to
use: up to 9 which is the maximum permitted.
Now, the dialog you are seeing is a "generic" dialog. They were too lazy to
make a dialog just for this purpose, so it's very confusing: half the stuff
on it is disabled, and the bits that aren't are out of context, which makes
the whole job unnecessarily difficult. Just ignore all the rubbish and look
for the drop-down at the bottom left in which the word "Format" appears.
Drop that down and you will see that only three options are enabled: Font,
Numbering, and Shortcut Key.
Leave "Font" alone: we are going to inherit the font from the List Number
paragraph style that we set up earlier. It is possible to have the number
in a different font from the paragraph text, but it looks strange and makes
everything a lot more complex: how bad do you want this to get? Word is a
bit like a candy store: it is up to us responsible grownups to resist
temptation (most of the time, anyway...)
Choose "Numbering". Remember that I told you that Bullets and Numbering are
the same thing? This is why I told you that: if you were making a Bulleted
List, you would still choose Numbering here.
Now you will see a familiar dialog that you may have seen before: "Outline
Numbering".
This is one-third of the dialog that people see if they are ever silly
enough to hit the Bullets and Numbering choice on the Format menu. Here,
the other two thirds are not shown because a List Style can only ever be an
Outline type. In Format>Bullets and Numbering, all three kinds are
available, which enables people who have never been able to find any decent
information in the Help (because it's not there!) to achieve a
brightly-coloured formatting fruit-salad in their document, because they
can't understand what's going on. Shortly thereafter, their document goes
"bang" they lose all their work, and they blame Microsoft.
I think that's justified. Microsoft would claim the reason the document got
broken was because the user created conflicting definitions in the
numbering. Which is true. But that is because the user could not find
information to show them how to avoid that. It's a bit like taking all the
instruments out of an airplane cockpit: it may be "fun" to fly in good
weather while your luck holds, but as soon as you fly into a cloud the
excitement level rises to pure terror, and a crash is the inevitable result.
OK, back to the Outline Numbering dialog: ( are you paying attention? I
told you there would be a test later...)
The dialog shows you a series of pictures of the standard built-in numbering
formats. To save work, you pick the one that is closest to the style you
are going to create. You can, in fact, create "any" numbering structure
your heart desires from any of the samples, but there is less to do if you
choose a sample close to what you want.
First, observe the "Reset" button in the bottom left corner. This is your
only indication that the selection you are looking at is non-standard.
Click in each of the squares. If the Reset button enables, that square has
been customised from the built-in default. For the purposes of this
exercise, click Reset any time you see it enabled, so we both stay on the
same page in this example.
Now, you will see the words "Heading 1", "Heading 2" and "Heading 3" appear
in the samples in the bottom row? These are the pre-configured Lists that
make Heading Numbering work. These lists are permanently welded to the
Heading 1 through Heading 9 range of built-in styles. You can customise
them, but you cannot break the link to those specific styles. These samples
are important: they give a user who has no idea how this stuff works a
fighting chance of getting Heading Numbering and their Table of Contents to
"just work".
In this exercise, you wanted a list of numbered paragraphs, so we do NOT
choose any of the bottom row: it would simply make our job harder. Nor do
we choose the one on the top right, which shows bullets. You don't want a
bulleted list, so stay out of there: you "could" change that sample to give
you numbering, but if you did, you would be making things very complicated:
let's leave fancy tricks to next time, right?
That leaves you a choice of two samples: one with ) parentheses as
separators, the other with periods. Choose whichever one you like, and
click Customise.
Now you see the "Customise Outline Numbering" dialog. You remember you were
asking about how to create a hanging indent list? This is where you do it.
At the left of the dialog, you see a tall narrow column labelled "Level".
The List Style has nine levels: you use this field to choose each level you
want to work on. If we were going to create four levels, you would choose
level 1 and make all your definitions, then choose Level 2 and make the
definitions for the second level, then choose Level 3, etc...
In this case, we are going to define only one of the levels. The dialog
will open set to "1" and we leave it that way. (The dialog will be set to a
different level if your cursor in the document text is in a paragraph which
is at a different level in the list, but currently you are in a blank
document which does not have any list paragraphs, so this time it will open
set to "1").
At the top of the dialog there is a "Number Format" box. In it, you will
see a grey number and the separator character (either a right parenthesis )
or a period). The number is a placeholder that shows you where the
generated number will occur in the format, and it is grey to show you that
it's generated, not text.
I will take this opportunity to show you one of the big secrets of this
dialog: you can't find this documented ANYWHERE
Remember I said you can
have nine levels? Well, which one are we looking at?
Just for demonstration, change the Level field to "5". You see that we can
now see FIVE number "1"s appearing? Which one is which? When you get to
advanced numbering, you will need to know. It is not at all intuitive...
In the Number Format field, move your cursor left and carefully select
precisely ONE of the grey numbers, NOT including any other character.
Observe the Previous Level box below: see how it changes to show you which
List Style level is generating that specific number? If the Previous Level
box goes blank, the number you have selected is from the CURRENT level (5,
in this case). If you have selected any other number, that box will tell
you which level is generating it.
Try to remember this: when you come to create fancy mixed numbering formats,
you will need to know this. Now please set the Level box back to "1" so we
know what we're doing.
Notice the Preview window to the right? That is showing you what a
paragraph using this level of your list will look like. It's not completely
accurate, but it's close enough to see what you are doing.
Below the Number Format box, we have another labelled "Number Style". This
controls the style of number that will be generated at the current level.
Drop this down and you will see you have a variety of choices, including
"None". There are times when you want some levels to have numbering and the
rest of the levels to have none. Headings is a classic example, where you
might number Headings 1, 2, and 3 but not Heading 4 or 5. You might then
start again at Heading 6 and set levels 6, 7 and 8 to have numbering and 9
not. This gives you all the heading numbering you need for a Technical
manual: you put the word "Chapter" in front of the Level 1, you put the word
"Appendix" ahead of the Level 6, and you have all of the headings in the
whole book beautifully and reliably numbered in a single list.
We're not doing fancy tricks here, so put the Number Style box back to "1,
2, 3..." and let's move on.
To the right of the Number Style box is another labelled "Start At". Every
time this list appears, it will start at the number you set here. So if you
set it to something other than "1" I will break your fingers: you are going
to have enough to do for now without increasing the level of complexity.
Those at the front of the class who were paying attention will remember
that we have seen this field before, two dialog boxes back, in the generic
dialog. It is the same property: it should not have appeared in that other
dialog box because it's difficult to see what it is doing there: here it is
obvious: it is setting the starting number for the selected level of this
list.
The field below is labelled "Previous Level Number". Because we are
currently selected to look at Level 1, that field is greyed out: you cannot
have a level previous to "1".
To the right of that field is another drop-down labelled "Font". Again, we
have seen it before, and again, if you touch it I will break your fingers
This enables you to set the font for this level of this numbering style
to something different from the font of the paragraph. You may use that
later when you come to set up complex heading numbering with fancy chapter
numbers. But if you play with it now, you risk having your document
formatting spinning out of control because you cannot keep all the
complexities separate in your mind.
Moving down the dialog, we have the Number Position drop-down. Currently it
will be set to "left". This controls the position of the generated number
in the number block. Let me explain:
Let's assume you are numbering a huge list that will go to three digits:
888. My paragraph text.
Word maintains a count of the number of paragraphs in each list in a
document, so it knows instantly when the count gets to three digits. When
that happens, it reserves a horizontal block of space big enough to contain
three digits [...].
The number position drop-down is controlling where in that box the number
will sit. Left means [1..], right means [..1] and centre means [.1.].
In your case, set it to "Left". The only time you change this is if you are
creating lists that will always appear on a single page and you want to have
the numbers aligned in order of magnitude. For this list, you won't get 100
paragraphs on a page, so it's better to align left so you do not produce a
ragged left margin.
The next box is "Aligned at". That controls the position of the left edge
of the number block (not the number, but the space where it will appear).
Unless you have a reason to do something else, you set this to the same
value as the left indent of your base paragraph style.
Let's assume that you have your Body Text paragraph set to 2.5 cm indent,
and your list number style is based on that. Your List Number style will
also be set to 2.5 cm left indent.
So set "Aligned at" to 2.5 cm, so your List Number "numbers" align with the
left margin of your Body Text style. Some people set a little more indent
(say 0.25 cm extra) on the numbering, which produces a visually pleasing
effect provided you remember to keep it consistent. For now: let's keep it
simple
The position we have just set marks the left position of the number. Now,
we need to move the text to the right to make room for three digits (this is
the real answer to the question you asked!)
In the Text Position block, you have two fields: "Indent at" and "Add tab
stop at". Indent at sets the left margin of the text on the lines below the
number. For three digits at 12 points you need 3 x 12 = 36 points of space
for the number. If the text gets any closer than 20 points to the right
edge of the number, it begins to visually merge with the number which makes
it hard to read. So your spacing should be set to 56 points minimum. 56
points is close enough to 0.8 of an inch (72 points to an inch). The
default is 0.63 cm (half an inch). You need to set "Indent at" to about 0.8
inches (2 cm) greater than your "Aligned at" value.
Here's a tip: Set the "Add tab at" value to the SAME value you set the
"Indent at" margin to. That makes for a nice square left margin. Hey,
guess what: we FINALLY got to the answer to your question
That was it
Now you have room for the three digit number and the tab. If you were
watching the preview, you would have seen the black lines move to show you a
nice square left margin, which is how you know you got it right.
You have completed defining your List Style, Now, we need to associate your
Paragraph Style with that. At the bottom left of the dialog is a small blue
disclosure triangle that they forgot to put a label on. Click it, and it
will reveal the rest of the "works" for you.
The "Link level to style" box associates each level of the List Style with
its Paragraph Style. Since we have only one level in this List Style, we
need do only one: set that box to "List Number".
The box below is labelled "Follow number with". That should have
automatically set itself to "Tab character" when we defined a tab position
in "Add tab at". If it hasn't, set it that way now.
The Legal Style checkbox does nothing unless we have multiple levels, but
leave it unchecked. Everything else is greyed out until we have more than
one level.
You can OK your way all the way out now
To APPLY this style, you can EITHER apply the Paragraph Style, or you can
apply the List Style: it doesn't matter. Whichever one you apply will
automatically apply the other. Normally, people would apply the Paragraph
Style, which will bring the List Style in.
The reason we have to explicitly define the Paragraph Style into the List
Style is to allow the flexibility of NOT doing so. The Legal Fraternity
demanded this: because in a legal document the numbering structure and the
formatting are often independent. But for the rest of us, it creates a trap
that leads to broken documents.
A user "can" apply a List Style to some paragraphs formatted with Normal
style, and again to some formatted with Body Text style. If they do, the
paragraph properties of the paragraph style will be overridden by the list
style. All good: UNTIL they come to copy the text. Then, all hell breaks
loose, because the formatting at the destination may not include the three
styles involved. In which case, high entertainment is guaranteed, and a
broken document follows shortly after.
For stable, reliable, maintainable numbering in the modern versions of Word,
I recommend:
* Always create a list style for each kind of bullet or numbering.
* Always associate a paragraph style with each of the levels of the List
Style you are going to use.
* Always apply bullets or numbering by applying the associated Paragraph
Style.
* NEVER use Format>Bullets and Numbering.
* NEVER change the numbering properties of just a few paragraphs. Doing so
breaks the list, and doing it twice will probably break the document.
Always make changes to the whole list.
There you go! Don't forget: Exam tomorrow to see if you were paying
attention
Hope this helps
Beginner question I fear.
How does one set up a style for numbered paragraphs so that after the
first line there is a hanging indent aligned under the same point (first
character) of the first line but that indent adjusts if the paragraph
number rises to double (or even triple) digits? Hope that is clear.
Also, in Word 5.1a, one could reorder numbered paragraphs with a Word
Tool if one changed the numbers on several paragraphs. Possible in Word
2008?
Thanks for any tips.
--
The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:
[email protected]