Styles for Outline Lists - Almost There!

[Joshua]

My numbered lists are almost airborne – and I think others may benefit from
these last few questions. I am working in Word 2000.

1) I want to name the list template to prevent corruption from the
“list gallery”. The “Listnum Field List Name” option appears for all levels
of the list. Do I have to enter the same name each time, or just at level 1
of the numbering template?

2) The style creation dialog has an “Outline Level” field. Do I have to
set this field for each of my non-numbered “base” styles to match its
intended level in my list template?

It seems that “outline numbering” (as in List Templates) and “outline
levels” (as in Outline View and built-in Heading styles) are two separate
animals. And in the VBA
samples Dave has posted here, this property is not set explicitly – does
that confirm my assumption that these are two separate mechanisms?

3) After I define the “base” styles that will be assigned to the list
template, do I then create another “List” style, for which I define the list
template? Or do I just open the top-level “base style”, select
Format>Numbering, and start assigning list levels?

I thought that I would define an overarching “List” style containing
all levels of the list template. While typing, I would then get the various
list levels by tabbing, with the format coming automatically from the style
definition. I see from my first efforts that it doesn’t work like that –
after assigning styles to the list template, I get the various numbered list
levels by directly applying the “base” styles, which now have numbering
defined… you could say I’ve applied the list template to the styles,
modifying them, instead of having one style that “administers” the list
template.

So the actual behavior is similar to my previous use of styles with
simple lists for each numbering level, as in Word 97 – to get a certain
level, directly apply its style. Is this correct? If so, why did I bother
with Outline styles? )

4) After I assigned the “base” styles to the list template, my left
indents changed dramatically. I read the “Word’s Numbering Explained”
article, and found out that this is a known bug – the hanging indent info
from the list template overwrites the style definition.

I notice that Dave Rado has a standard set of instructions that he posts
here – Dave, please mention this bug. It was very disconcerting to see these
changes, and most folks defining a series of numbered lists probably have
formatted left indents in their “base” styles.

Thanks again for your help, and for the in-depth info on the MVP and
personal websites…

Joshua

 

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi Joshua - answers/comments below:

My numbered lists are almost airborne - and I think others may benefit from
these last few questions. I am working in Word 2000.

Well done!

1) I want to name the list template to prevent corruption from the
"list gallery". The "Listnum Field List Name" option appears for all levels
of the list. Do I have to enter the same name each time, or just at level 1
of the numbering template?

The name applies to the whole list template, so you should only enter the
name once. In various experimentation with setting the name from the user
interface, we have occasionally seen odd effects such as 'zombie' list
template names and proliferation of names with suffixes. So I would try this
out on a copy of your template, and check you are happy with the results.
You might also need to look at
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/MacrosVBA/UpdateStyles.htm if you are copying
or updating numbered styles.

As an aside, I don't think that adding a list template name from the UI has
any effect on list template stability (may even complicate things). Using a
name is however necessary in the 'dose of VBA' solution which allows you to
set up (and modify repeatedly if you wish) the list template and style
mapping avoiding the use of the List Gallery or Bullets and Numbering
dialog. In early SRs in 97 at least, setting the list template up using VBA
in this way made a big difference to whether, for instance, you could update
numbered styles from template, but this may not apply to the most recent
SRs - at least for heading styles.

2) The style creation dialog has an "Outline Level" field. Do I have to
set this field for each of my non-numbered "base" styles to match its
intended level in my list template?

It seems that "outline numbering" (as in List Templates) and "outline
levels" (as in Outline View and built-in Heading styles) are two separate
animals. And in the VBA
samples Dave has posted here, this property is not set explicitly - does
that confirm my assumption that these are two separate mechanisms?

Yes, two quite separate mechanisms called by the same name (thank you,
Microsoft). Add to that TOC levels, which are separate again (may or may not
map from outline levels; nothing to do with numbering levels).

3) After I define the "base" styles that will be assigned to the list
template, do I then create another "List" style, for which I define the list
template? Or do I just open the top-level "base style", select
Format>Numbering, and start assigning list levels?

I thought that I would define an overarching "List" style containing
all levels of the list template. While typing, I would then get the various
list levels by tabbing, with the format coming automatically from the style
definition. I see from my first efforts that it doesn't work like that -
after assigning styles to the list template, I get the various numbered list
levels by directly applying the "base" styles, which now have numbering
defined. you could say I've applied the list template to the styles,
modifying them, instead of having one style that "administers" the list
template.

So the actual behavior is similar to my previous use of styles with
simple lists for each numbering level, as in Word 97 - to get a certain
level, directly apply its style. Is this correct? If so, why did I bother
with Outline styles? )

I'm not sure I fully understand the question here. You need one style for
each list level, and its normally best to set up their font, space
before/after, line and page break rules and so on first. But not their tabs
and indents, which will come from the numbering scheme.

You can then complete the style definitions by linking the styles to list
levels. You *must* use the same list template (set of 9 list levels) if the
styles are part of the same numbering sequence (for example, heading 2 is
numbered n.m, where n is the last heading 1 number, or sublist a, b, c
restarts within each main list item 1, 2, 3). I also use different levels of
a single list template for levels of list bullet because:

If you have a set of styles linked to different levels of the same list
template, then promote/demote list level (by tabbing, if you have that
option set) *will* work at you expect, and will apply the correct style,
with all its other formatting, in the process. So tabbing a heading 2 will
change it to a heading 3, for instance. The only place this doesn't work is
on the very first paragraph of the list.

Note that if you are setting this up from the dialogs, you must follow
Shauna Kelly's instructions - set up the entire list template (the linking
for *all* the styles) from Modify > Numbering on the *top level* style.

4) After I assigned the "base" styles to the list template, my left
indents changed dramatically. I read the "Word's Numbering Explained"
article, and found out that this is a known bug - the hanging indent info
from the list template overwrites the style definition.

I notice that Dave Rado has a standard set of instructions that he posts
here - Dave, please mention this bug. It was very disconcerting to see these
changes, and most folks defining a series of numbered lists probably have
formatted left indents in their "base" styles.

Thanks again for your help, and for the in-depth info on the MVP and
personal websites.

Not so much a bug as one for Word's 'confusing but logical' category, I
think <g>. The list template does need to take control over indents and tab
positions, but it is confusing that you appear to be able to override these
in a style's paragraph settings, only to have the list template change them
when you least expect it! The thing to remember is that if it is a numbered
style, then leave the indents and first tab position to the list template.

However there are also some genuine bugs around Word's assumptions about
where tabs should be, and whether or not it allows negative indents.

Hope this is some help in the final lap