[Originally appeared 1999.]
We continue the saga of automatic numbering. Many of you have written about familiar and not so familiar issues with automatic numbering. We hope to answer many of the questions, but we are not ready for a Q&A column just yet.
First, I strongly encourage reference to resources that have attacked paragraph numbering and related issues. Several Microsoft Word newsgroups have had active discussions, including microsoft.public.word.numbering, microsoft.public.word.applicationerrors and microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs groups.
Microsystems Engineering has presented several terrific documents on numbering and other aspects of excellent use of Word, as well as conversion from WordPerfect, at http://www.microsystems.com/resources/word-tips-and-tricks.php. “The Seven Laws of Word’s Outline Numbering” have been an inspiration, including the title for the first of these columns. Sherry Kappel at Microsystems recommends “Learning Word Programming” by Steven Roman, O’Reilly & Associates; ISBN: 1-56592-524-6, especially for its coverage in Chapter 17 of the List object (and its cousins, the ListTemplates Object and ListGalleries Object) the powers for good and evil behind the scenes of Word 97’s numbering feature.There is much to absorb from these sources, and this column won’t attempt to reproduce all of it.
The last column’s explored the tab settings that reappear when changing numbering formats (whimsically entitled “Jason tabs” in the Microsystems article for their refusal to die). At the end, we mentioned the use of List Gallery settings to avoid shifts of left indents and first line indents when changing paragraph numbering formats. For instance, a document may contain a numbering format scheme attached to a series of heading styles, and the left indents and first line indents are supposed to be different from those in the default settings for the paragraph numbering scheme. If the changes are made by changing the formatting settings of the styles, a change of numbering formats using the List Gallery will undo these custom settings. If the changes are made through the List Gallery, however, the custom settings will stick.
The settings to use are found in the “Customize Outline Numbered List” dialog that appears when one of the numbering format sets is selected and the “Customize” button is executed on the Bullets and Numbering dialog. The Customize dialog includes settings for “Number Position” and “Text Position.” The Number Position sets a first line indent for the paragraph (and linked style) and the Text Position sets the left indent for the paragraph (and linked style). To the uninitiated, these settings look like modifications of the linked style. They show up as Paragraph Style settings in Help|What’s This. They also get reported as properties of the appropriate style under VBA. Yet (and it’s a big yet) they behave specially (a euphemism) when interacting with the List Gallery.
As an antidote to negativity and complexity, here is a very effective and powerful keystroke shortcut to use when working with numbering linked to styles. By default, the “Promote” and “Demote” numbering level functions are assigned to ALT SHIFT LEFT ARROW and ALT SHIFT RIGHT ARROW, respectively. These keystrokes raise or lower the numbering level of the currently selected text, and, if styles are linked, change to the appropriate linked style. If the text is not in a numbering level (such as text in a Body Text Style), the level will be promoted to Level 1. The keystrokes perform the same function as the promote and demote buttons on the Outlining toolbar. For folks converting from WordPerfect, their function achieves similar or greater power than the [Par Num:Auto] code did.
Will Word 2000 save the day? How did Word’s automatic numbering get like this anyway? The answer to the first question is easy, the second mysterious. No, there have been no changes in the functionality of automatic numbering in Word 2000. Answering the second question is difficult because there is so little documentation from Microsoft, and no one I have spoken to can identify the persons responsible for the present system.
As best one can reconstruct, versions of Word prior to Word 97 could apply numbering directly to paragraphs, without linkage to styles, or could link numbering to Heading styles. There were limits on the variations of number format that did not meet the expectations for legal documents and other complex numbering formats, especially those that have combined levels, such as Section 1.1.1 (or its cousins Chapter I followed by a second level such as 1.1).
There was (and still is) a second approach to creating numbering sequences using {SEQ} fields. One way to see these fields is to convert a WordPerfect document with a full set of numbering levels. The WordPerfect automatic numbering will be converted to those fields. Some who have struggled with AutoNumbering have concluded that {SEQ} fields are the only safe alternative. We will explore the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches in later columns.
Word 97’s design included the direction to provide significantly greater numbering flexibility. The enhancements included the ability to link numbering formats to any style and to use a mix of direct number formatting and style linked formatting. Number formats could include prior levels, without inheriting the text prefixes and suffixes of the prior levels. These capabilities were added to the Bullets and Numbering dialog, which retained its basic look and feel from the prior versions. It looks like this project was never finished, and we are left with a very mixed environment.
One imagines that the programmers were assigned to the key projects for Word 2000, such as the HTML round trip. After all, paragraph numbering is not an Internet issue. From the comments of some of the Microsoft staff, we would do best if we could describe it as one. Let’s consider ourselves challenged.
This 1999 article originally appeared in Office Watch. Subscribe to Office Watch free at http://www.office-watch.com/.