Word 2007: Possible to create named bullet style?

[Willy]

I'm an experienced Word developer but have so far been unable to find a good
solution for bullet styles in Word 2007, even after spending a lot of time
searching and researching.

In Word 2003 I could quickly and easily define a named bullet style, add it
to a template and have it work perfectly all the time. No lost bullets, no
changed indentation settings - just working like you would expect of any
style, bullet or not.

Is it at all possible to define a _named_ bullet style in Word 2007 with
the same reliable functionality as in previous versions?

I have been able to define a bullet style in a template and it looks perfect
at the time of creation. But the next time I use the template the bullet has
disappeared and/or the indentation settings changed.

I know I can manipulate list styles and multilevel lists and have actually
used "Define new bullet..." to define a new and named bullet style.

However, this type of style doesn't show up in the style list and though I'm
able to select it from the multilevel list ribbon button, its style name
isn't shown in the document either. It just shows the underlying style name,
for example Normal. Therefore there is no way for the user to double check if
the correct style has been applied.

This isn't just nice to have in everyday Word use but in my application
(producing magazine articles) it is important that every piece of text has a
clearly named style since the document's next stop is InDesign where Word
styles will be mapped to InDesign styles.

Surely this must be possible?

Willy

 

[Stefan Blom]

Apart from Home tab | Multilevel List (where, as you have noticed, the name
isn't listed), list styles are only accessible from the Apply Styles pane
(Ctrl+Shift+S).

Note, however, that you can attach paragraph styles to each level of a list
style (yes, this approach to multilevel bullets/numbers is still recommended in
Word 2007) and then apply the paragraph styles as appropriate.

 

[Willy]

Thanks Stefan,

I wasn't aware of the "Link level to style" function in the multilevel
bullets definition.

So yesterday I created a new named multilevel bullet style, then created a
new named paragraph style, then used "Link level to style" to attach level 1
of my multilevel bullet style to my new paragraph style. All this was done in
a separate Word template.

Everything looked beautiful and seemed to work exactly as I wanted. But
today the bullet had disappeared from my paragraph style and when I looked up
my multilevel bullet definition it was now linked to "(no style)".

I now deleted my paragraph style, created a new one and again linked the
bullet style to my new paragraph style. However, after saving the template
and restarting Word 2007 the link had again disappeared!

Looking at the definition of the paragraph style all the correct settings
seem to be still there. But there seems to be no way to determine which
bullet style a paragraph style is linked to. It displays the settings but
doesn't show the name of my bullet style anywhere.

Looking at the bullet style doesn't help much either. It also doesn't show
in an easy way which paragraph style it has been linked to, unless you go all
the way into the dialog boxes. But the main problem seems to be that the link
I set up seems to disappear almost immediately.

I hope you're not out of suggestions yet. It's hard to imagine that this
just doesn't work in Word 2007 anymore...

Best,

Willy

 

[Stefan Blom]

How exactly did you do this? Did you start in the Modify Style dialog box for
the list style?

Also, note that if you modified the list style in a template, it should work in
new documents based on that template. Existing documents, however, must be dealt
with separately.

Another thing to consider: When styles change unexpectedly, make sure the
"Automatically update document styles" option is cleared in the Templates and
Add-Ins dialog box.

 

[Willy]

Hej Stefan,

Thanks for the time and patience you are spending on this! This is what I
did:

I opened my template and created a basic paragraph style, just based on what
amounts to the Normal style in my template and waiting to be linked to my
bullet style.

I then clicked on the Multilevel List button in the ribbon and selected
Define New List Style to define my new bullet style. I named this style and
selected the bullet and indenting as I wanted, then linked it to my new
paragraph style.

I then saved the template and re-opened it. The bullet style is now no
longer linked to the paragraph style.

On the other hand, when I create a new document based on the template, the
styles still ARE linked and for the moment things seem to work. But so they
did a few days ago and then the bullet was lost again.

Since the template is for a client I would like to be absolutely convinced
that I'm delivering a robust solution. In Word 2003 this just worked, but in
2007 this area seems shaky. I would love to see the authoritative article on
how to produce a robust named paragraph style for bullets...

Best,

Willy
------------------------

How exactly did you do this? Did you start in the Modify Style dialog box
for the list style?

Also, note that if you modified the list style in a template, it should
work in new documents based on that template. Existing documents, however,
must be dealt with separately.

Another thing to consider: When styles change unexpectedly, make sure the
"Automatically update document styles" option is cleared in the Templates
and Add-Ins dialog box.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: (e-mail address removed) ---

 

[Stefan Blom]

It does seem as if you are doing everything right...

Where are you looking when you decide that the link between the list style and
the paragraph style has broken?

I'm wondering if the fact that a list style has nine levels of numbering could
be relevant here. To which level did you assign the paragraph style?

When you apply the list style to text, what happens? Same question if you apply
the paragraph style directly?

 

[Willy]

Where are you looking when you decide that the link between the list style and
the paragraph style has broken?

In the Modify Multilevel List dialog.

I'm wondering if the fact that a list style has nine levels of numbering could
be relevant here. To which level did you assign the paragraph style?

Level 1 only.

When you apply the list style to text, what happens? Same question if you apply
the paragraph style directly?

Two scenarios, first when I do this in a new document based on the template:

Applying the list style directly formats the paragraph correctly and sets it
to the paragraph style I defined and linked to. The same thing happens when I
apply the paragraph style.

When I inspect the Multilevel List dialog the link is still there.

However, when I open the template itself the link is gone and the behaviour
slightly different. Applying the list style still formats correctly but
doesn't set the paragraph style. Using the paragraph style still works the
same way as above though the link is broken.

So at the moment it works fine in documents based on the template though it
doesn't work in the template itself. This of course isn't so important but it
is very strange that the result of my work disappears there. New documents
though know that the link is there, while the template itself doesn't.

Maybe there's a bug here? In any case my client is now testing the new
version of the template and we'll just have to see if the problems come back
again or not.

Willy

----------------------------------------

 

[Stefan Blom]

What I have seen in the past is the following: If you first apply paragraph
styles to text and *then* set up a list style with those styles linked, the
numbering may not be added to the styles already applied to text.

What you are describing obviously isn't the same but, just in case, I'd apply
the relevant paragraph styles to text, not the list style. I'd only use the list
style when I wanted to edit the list formatting.

It might be a bug. Note that list styles are rather new in Word, which means
that few people might be using them.

 

[Willy]

Hej Stefan,

Using the paragraph style is what I wanted to do and what I always use. I
tried the list style only because you suggested testing this (and of course
this was relevant).

It seems this is as far as we can come for now. If the problem persists a
possible solution may be to use VBA to re-attach the list style to the
paragraph style on Document_New and Document_Open. But hopefully things will
continue to work.

Again, many thanks for your time and contributions!

Willy

 

[Stefan Blom]

From your experience, it seems as if list styles aren't really safe, yet. :-(