[Originally appeared 1999.]
Word of Law No. 1 stated “The Seven Laws of Styles” and ended without explaining Law 7: Tie automatic numbering to heading styles.
This may be the hottest issue for Word 97 in legal practice. First, we will not finish this topic in this column. In fact, before we can really master automatic numbering, we will touch Word 97 at many levels. Topics to be covered will include (not necessarily in order) the linkage of styles to templates, the relationship of direct paragraph formatting to style based formatting, the mysterious and intricate List Gallery (the Word VBA name for the dialog entitled “Bullets and Numbering”), the relationship of the Windows Registry to the List Gallery, the Outline View, the Document Map, Tables of Contents and strategies for the structure of legal documents. We must understand the basic conflicts in the methods Word 97 uses to format numbers and paragraph styles. We cannot avoid some attention to the numbering tools from earlier versions of Word.
Even to write that list feels frightening. Before we start trying to sort these issues out, is it worth it? If there are problems with automatic paragraph numbering and styles, why bother? Wouldn’t it be easier to just type the numbers? Isn’t there an easy solution?
In the WOW spirit, if the reward is great enough, we will pick apart and rework Word 97 to make it work, if we have to. We have to.
Attorneys love to number paragraphs in their documents. From simple sequential numbered or lettered paragraphs, numbering in legal documents may flower into complex schemes. Beyond outlines such as:
I. Main Heading
A. Subheading
1. Subsubheading.
legal documents may use schemes such as:
1. Main Heading
1.1 Subheading
1.1.1 Subsubheading
or
ARTICLE I
Main Heading
Section 1.01 Subheading.
As the preceding paragraphs indicate, the formatting of the levels is as important to the geography of a document as the numbers. That link cries for the use of styles. Styles force paragraphs with the same function in a document to have the same formatting. That’s what Law 2, Format Follows Function, means.
If we want (legal) documents to be fully interchangeable and reusable, style based formatting (supported by appropriately formatted templates) is a must.
In significant ways, Word 97 rewards documents that attach their hierarchy of numbered paragraphs to Heading Styles 1 through 9. The built-in settings for the Document Map and the Outline View make documents structured this way modular and powerful to navigate and edit. The Document Map allows a user to travel from heading to heading in a framed view. The Outline View allows users to move, insert and delete segments of a document with a single mouseclick or keystroke. Tables of contents can be constructed from the contents of the headings without additional coding. When all this works, those who write with their word processor achieve the full potential of Word 97.
The simple truth is that it doesn’t always work, and the failures can be subtle and difficult to understand.
For this column, we will describe the clash between style based formatting and number formatting. We will save other issues for future columns.
Following the Laws of Styles, if the numbering scheme is to be attached to Heading Styles 1 through 9, it would be natural to expect to use the format settings for each of the styles to control all elements of the formatting of those paragraphs, including fonts, left, right and first line indents, paragraph spacing, borders and shading, to name some. We might even want to use the techniques described in Law 5, “Change locally, then propagate globally.”
Troubles arise when one tries to change the numbering format. When the numbering format is changed through the List Gallery, left indents, first line indents and tab settings for Heading Styles 1 through 9 that have been set in those styles (other than through the List Gallery controls) can change. Users perceive these changes as instabilities or bugs in the operation of the styles. In fact, Word also controls the left indent, first line indent and first tab setting through the List Gallery. If control of these settings is made solely through the settings in the List Gallery, the problems can be limited. Using the List Gallery for these settings is harder and far less natural than the methods of Law 5.
We will need to dig deeper to fully understand and control these functions. A solution lies in developing and storing templates with the numbering and associated formatting properly configured for the heading style levels, then applying those style settings to a document through the Style Gallery (or the equivalent macro function), when it is necessary to change numbering formats. The number levels themselves are applied through application of the appropriate style. If set up and managed properly, end users can apply automatic numbering consistently and accurately.
We (just) need to work through the techniques and traps for those templates. There are plenty of twists and turns.
***
This 1999 article originally appeared in Office Watch.