[Originally appeared 1999.]

The e-mails to WordofLaw@woodyswatch.com have raised many interesting issues, many of which need time to sort out. Several correspondents have asked where the numbering settings are stored. That tale will take us into the intricacies of the ListTemplate objects, their interaction with the Bullets and Numbering (aka List Galleries) dialog, and the related registry settings.

One question with an easier answer was asked by several writers. They wished to turn off the automatic numbering ”as you type.” When this feature is on, if one types a paragraph beginning with”1.”, upon pressing ENTER at the end of the paragraph, the next paragraph automatically begins with “2.” and so forth.

This and several other automatic formatting settings can be turned off on the Tools|AutoCorrect menu, AutoFormat as You Type tab. At the top of that dialog are 5 “Apply as you type” settings. We recommend that none of them be checked. Following the Laws of Styles in Word of Law No. 1 , such formatting characteristics should be applied intentionally by the selection of the appropriate style.

This example points to a strategy that we recommend for organizations using Word. The design for Word should consider all of the controllable default options. Chapter 2 Word 97 Annoyances, “Vital Changes,”is an essential reference. A macro should be prepared that resets Word’s options to the organization’s default settings. This allows users, support and help staff to get Word working “right” again, from the organization’s point of view.

The following macro disables the AutoFormat as You Type settings mentioned above. A complete macro to set Word’s options would include the entire set of options.

Sub CorrectAutoFormatasYouTypeOptions()
With Options
.AutoFormatAsYouTypeApplyHeadings = False
.AutoFormatAsYouTypeApplyBorders = False
.AutoFormatAsYouTypeApplyBulletedLists = False
.AutoFormatAsYouTypeApplyNumberedLists = False
.AutoFormatAsYouTypeApplyTables = False
End With
End Sub

This 1999 article originally appeared in Office Watch.  Subscribe to Office Watch free at http://www.office-watch.com/.

[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/.

[Originally appeared 1999]

THE SEVEN LAWS OF STYLES

LAW 1. All paragraph formatting should be applied through appropriate paragraph styles. Use the least possible direct formatting. Do not use the Format Painter.

The documents of legal practice should be highly consistent in formatting and structure. Sometimes they must follow prescribed formatting rules, such as those of courts. Legal documents get reworked intensely and reused constantly. Documents need to be reformatted in whole, whether to meet the requirements of different courts, or the practices of different departments. Portions of documents should be able to be moved and reused, with a minimum of reformatting.

Thorough use of styles, backed by appropriate templates, enables Word to work just this way. Direct formatting may seem to be a quick solution to special formatting needs, but it makes it difficult to “see” the source of formatting and to allow clean reformatting when a document needs to travel. The Format Painter is even worse, creating invisible formatting links that ought to be controlled by proper application of styles.

Note that this discussion applies to paragraph styles. Character styles have much less use. They will be covered in a future column.

LAW 2. Format Follows Function.

With a nod of the head to our architect friends, this law tells us to name styles for the function text performs in a document, rather than the method of formatting. For instance, the most common text in many documents will use Body Text style. If in some documents it needs to be single spaced, while in others double spaced, don’t use a “Single Space” style for one and a “Double Spaced Style” for the other. Use Body Text in both, but change the settings for Body Text (preferably through application of a grouped set of styles maintained in a template). Then the document will be instantly and accurately transformed from the formats required by one practice to those of another, with no fiddling around with formatting.

LAW 3. Use common names for styles across the body of legal documents.

Use Body Text as the style for the body text of all documents, Headings 1 through 9 as the style names for heading levels, and so on. Then, to change the overall formatting of documents, store the appropriate style settings in a template, and use the Style Gallery to switch formats.

LAW 4 Avoid applying Normal style.

Use Normal style as a base for other styles. Using Normal Style itself violates LAW 2.

LAW 5 Change locally, then propagate globally, but do not use the “Automatically Update” setting for any styles.

The Automatically Update setting can cause nearly instantaneous havoc with document formatting. It represents a solution to an intrinsic issue in ease of use for Word. While styles have all the power we have described, modifying and managing them can be difficult to learn, and often, even for experienced users, difficult to do. To modify styles, users must dig through 5 levels of menus and dialogs, then climb back again. When you get there, the connection between the settings and text may be very difficult to see.

Automatically Update was supposed to solve that. For instance, changing Left and Right Indents or tab settings could be accomplished directly and visually with the controls on the Ruler. Then, with Automatically Update on, these changes would immediately change the style settings the same way. Unfortunately this can also happen accidentally, leaving users confused and frustrated.

Word has a better, more controllable way to spread local formatting changes to the style applied to a paragraph. Make the font, spacing and indent changes to one paragraph of the appropriate style. Then, select the paragraph including its paragraph mark. With the formatting toolbar on, press CTRL SHIFT S (or mouse click on the style name in the toolbar) and press ENTER. If (and only if) you have changed the formatting of the paragraph from that of its style, a “Modify Style” dialog will appear asking whether “you wish to modify the style to reflect recent changes” or reapply the formatting of the style to the paragraph. Choosing the first will then propagate the local changes to the style and change all paragraphs in the document with that style.

Catch 1. This technique does not work unless a toolbar is showing with the style name (standard in the default Formatting toolbar).

Catch 2. Spacing and indent changes can propagate using this technique whether or not the paragraph mark for the paragraph has been selected. Font changes for the paragraph as a whole can propagate only if the paragraph mark has been selected. If not, this technique will cause the font to revert to that of the style. Thus, learning the technique by selecting the whole paragraph, including its paragraph mark, achieves more consistent results.

Catch 3. This technique can leave hidden direct formatting. In a future column, we will look at a macro shortcut that will support these technique without the catches.

The following macro will remove the Automatically Update setting from all styles in a document for Word 97 and 2000.

Public Sub RemoveAutomaticallyUpdate() Dim aSty As Style For Each aSty In ActiveDocument.Styles aSty.AutomaticallyUpdate = False Next aSty End Sub

LAW 6 Use no empty paragraphs.

Empty paragraphs are a relic of typing. They have no text except the paragraph mark. When documents use them for spacing, instead of styles set with proper paragraph spacing, they corrupt the clean global transformation of document formats.

Again, a brief macro can clean out empty paragraphs.

Public Sub CleanEmptyParagraphs() Dim aPara As Paragraph For Each aPara In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs If Asc(aPara.Range.Characters.First) = 13 Then aPara.Range.Delete End If Next aPara End Sub

LAW 7 Tie automatic numbering to heading styles.

This law deserves its own column, next time.

 

This 1999 article originally appeared in Office Watch.  Subscribe to Office Watch free at http://www.office-watch.com/

[Originally appeared 1999]

At the end of a few weeks of participation in the beta testing of Woody

[Originally appeared 1999.]

Word of Law No. 2 began the journey through the labyrinth of Word 97’s automatic paragraph numbering. This week we continue that journey. We may not make it past where the last column ended, but we will dig deeper. Up to our hips, at least.

In the short time since Word of Law No. 1 was distributed, many of you have sent detailed questions and comments, especially about automatic numbering. Eventually, we will try to cover as many of those questions as possible. Your questions also show a range of understanding and experience with the structure and tools of Microsoft Word. We will try to address those at several levels, and trust you will be patient with materials either too simple or advanced for your needs.

We started with Law 7 of the Laws of Styles stated in Word of Law No. 1, “Tie automatic numbering to heading styles” and ended with the direction to prepare templates with proper settings for numbering and all other heading style formatting, then using the Style Gallery to apply numbering formats. There will be exceptions, of course.

Before diving back into the List Gallery, let’s explore in greater detail the strategy for using Heading styles to organize the structure, formatting (and, where applicable) numbering of legal documents.

The following three examples illustrate (within the limits of the plain text formatting of WOW), the use of Heading and Body Text styles to organize the structure and formatting of three types of legal documents. In each case, the name of the style used for each paragraph can be found in brackets preceding the text of the paragraph (but not the paragraph numbering. Please imagine that the spacing between the paragraphs and the first line indents are established by the spacing and first line indent settings of the styles.

SIMPLE AGREEMENT STRUCTURE:

1. [Heading 1]SCOPE OF WORK

[Body Text]Subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter provided, Customer engages CONSULTANT for the furnishing of the services specified ….

2. [Heading 1]TERM

[Body Text]This Agreement shall terminate one (1) year following the Effective Date; provided, however, …

3. [Heading 1]CONSIDERATION AND PAYMENT

A. [Heading 2]This Agreement is on a time and materials basis only …

COMPLEX AGREEMENT STRUCTURE:

ARTICLE 1 [Heading 1] REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES OF THE SHAREHOLDERS

[Body Text]As a material inducement to OLDCO to enter into this Agreement and consummate the Merger, …:

Section 1.1 [Heading 2]Status. The Company is a corporation ….

Section 1.2 [Heading 2]Corporate Authority,Effective Agreement. The Board of Directors and the Shareholders have duly authorized …

Section 1.3 [Heading 2]Contracts, Leases, Agreements and Other Commitments.

[Body Text]The Company is not a party to any contract or agreement except for the following (collectively, the “Company Agreements”):

(a) [Heading 3]the investment advisor agreements…;

 

BRIEF STRUCTURE:

[Heading 1]NATURE OF CASE AND ORDER FROM WHICH APPEAL IS TAKEN

[Body Text]Appellant, …

[Heading 1]STATEMENT OF THE CASE AND THE FACTS MATERIAL TO THE ISSUES PRESENTED ON APPEAL

[Body Text]This action arises out of …

[Heading 1]STATEMENT OF ISSUES [Body Text]…

[Heading 1]SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

[Body Text]The district court gave …

[Heading 1]ARGUMENT

A. [Heading 2]No Implied Attorney-Client Relationship Was Created Between …

[Body Text]…

1. [Heading 3]The Agreement of Counsel Relied Upon by the District Court …

[Body Text]Neither the plaintiffs nor the district court identified …

[Heading 1]CONCLUSION

[Body Text]For all of the foregoing reasons, …

In the actual documents, the Body Text and Heading styles in each of these documents control the font, line spacing, spacing between paragraphs and margins for each of the types of paragraphs. For instance, in the Simple Agreement, the font for the Heading 1 style, used for the titles of the provisions of the contract, has its font set to Bold, All Caps.

In addition, automatic paragraph numbering has been set for Heading styles 1 through 3. In the agreements, each of these levels includes a paragraph numbering setting. In the brief, Heading 1 does not include numbering, but Heading styles 2 and 3 do. The sample text indicates the content of the “number” in the text preceding the name of the style. Thus, in the simple agreement, the number for Heading 1 Style includes Arabic numbers (1,2,3) and the period character. In the Complex Agreement, the Heading 1 style numbering includes the word “Article” followed by Arabic numbers, while Heading 2 includes the word “Section” followed by a compound numbering, including the prior level.

If only the story ended here… Notice that the list of paragraph formatting characteristics for Heading 1 through Heading 3 styles did not list left indent, first line indent and tab settings. These are the style format settings (in VBA terms, the properties of Styles(StyleName).ParagraphFormat) in conflict between the settings stored in the style and those maintained through the numbering dialog.

Let’s go back to the List Gallery and look at this conflict in action. Several of you have asked where to find the “List Gallery,” pointing out correctly that there is no menu entry with that name. List Gallery is the name assigned to the dialog that appears upon selecting the Bullets and Numbering entry in the standard Format menu. The dialog has three tabs. For the present, we focus on the “Outline Numbered” tab. It presents eight windows, one to “None” and seven to numbering patterns.

Open a blank document. (Please, do not do this on any real work, yet.) Insert a paragraph in Heading 1 Style, then Body Text, then Heading 2 Style, then Body Text, then Heading 3 Style (similar to the examples above). With the cursor in the Heading 1 Style paragraph, select Format|Bullets and Numbering and the Outline Numbered tab. If you have not changed from the default settings, the window second from the right in the bottom row will be in a standard outline I, A, 1 scheme. Select this choice and notice that the settings for the left indent, first line indent and first tab for each of Heading 1 through 3 has changed to a staggered, left to right descending pattern, with a first tab set 0.25 inches to the right of the first line indent.

Decide, for whatever reason, that you want the first tab after the paragraph number to be 0.5 inches to the right of the first line indent in Heading 1. Were you to try to use the CTRL-SHIFT-S Modify style technique described in issue 4.20, this would be trivial, <heh, heh>. Just put the cursor in a Heading 1 style, drag that custom tab over on the ruler, press CTRL-SHIFT-S and choose to update the style. It works for now, without changing the numbering. But wait, you also want to change the numbering format, such as making Heading 3 “(1)” instead of “1”. Proceed to the List Gallery and on to customize the number. When you return, you will find that custom tab right back at 0.25 inches to the right of the first line indent. If you have made this change to several heading styles, they will all be affected.

Another way to invoke the same misbehavior is to remove the numbering on the Heading Style paragraph with the 1,2,3 button on the formatting toolbar, then restore it with the same button. While that procedure violates more than one of the Laws of Styles, it also causes these hard programmed changes to the other Heading Styles.

Remember, this is a feature! It is a small, but critical example of the unexpected control of styles built in to automatic numbering in Word 97. Left indents and first line indents suffer similar effects, although they can be controlled through settings in the List Gallery, which we will explore further in the next column. The tabs are a creature unto themselves. Some of you wrote of your despair of working with Word 97’s automatic numbering, and success in the use of the {SEQ} sequence fields. These older tools for automatic numbering can be used successfully, but do not offer all of the power of numbered styles. Believe it or not, before we are through, we will have a successful strategy and the tools to use and troubleshoot it.

By the way, the following code for creating the examples offers a simple and unsophisticated technique for creating a written scheme for the use of paragraphs styles in a document.

Public Sub InsertStyleNames() Dim aPara As Paragraph For Each aPara In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs aPara.Range.Select Selection.Collapse wdCollapseStart Selection.TypeText (“[”& aPara.Style & “]”) Next aPara End Sub

This 1999 article originally appeared in Office Watch.  Subscribe to Office Watch free at http://www.office-watch.com/

[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.