Numbering Styles are Comprimised

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In Word 2007, how can I copy text with outline-numbered heading styles into a new document so that it adapts to the destination’s own numbering scheme?

If a custom hierachical numbering scheme is created (e.g. “3.2.P.2 Heading Text“, where 3.2.P.2 is the custom numbering for heading level 1) but somehow, the subordinate headings change to standard outline numbering (e.g. heading 2, which should be 3.2.P.2.1 shows up as 1.1), is there any way at all to copy the text into a new document (ostensibly one with the same, correct scheme) without bringing along the current/bad one? The only method I’ve found is to change the style for all the headings to a non-outline style. I’ve written code to assign “tags” to those headings, e.g. , and complimentary code to change them back, but I wonder if there is a way to get the average user to be able to copy and paste them without bringing along the “corrupted” numbering scheme.

It seems that Word 2003 made it easier to manipulate numbering.

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If you paste it then select those headings and to a Paragraph format reset (Ctrl-Q), does this correct the paragraph numbering in the target document?

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Unfortunately, no. I’m a bit surprised by that, but I guess it’s because it’s a custom “scheme”, albeit a broken one.

(What is the proper term, anyway? A collection? A List Style? I recall VBA in Word 2003 having a specific term for each “style”…)

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Unfortunately, no. I’m a bit surprised by that, but I guess it’s because it’s a custom “scheme”, albeit a broken one.

(What is the proper term, anyway? A collection? A List Style? I recall VBA in Word 2003 having a specific term for each “style”…)

You might try changing the cut, copy, and paste choices in Word options > advanced. In W2007, there is a choice called match destination formatting. It may give you what you want. I can’t say because I haven’t used that setting, or the keep text only setting, for some time. If it does not give you the paste behvior you want, then …

Clearing the paragraph formatting should work, but only if the styles are the same. You could also try reapplying the styles (select all, say, heading 2s, clear all formatting, and then click heading 2 to reapply).
If paragraph styles are not the cause, there may be more than one multilevel list applied to the document. When this has happened to me in W2007, I’ve caused it by, for example, defining a new list while the cursor was not in the first level one heading. You can fix this by selecting the entire document and changing the multilevel list choice to “none”. You may also have to unlink the heading levels from the numbering scheme by modifying the style (this last really is a bug). Then, with the cursor in the first level one heading, reapply the multilevel list.
It is also possible that a numbered pararaph has been set to restart. The fix is to select the number and set the numbering value to continuous.
All of the above indicates that the document’s formatting needs to be cleaned up and instead of that the numbering scheme is broken.

Pam

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In Word 2007-speak, they are “multilevel lists”, which you can optionally save as a named List Style.

If you stick to using multilevel lists (without the List Style feature), then creating and modifying these is similar to earlier versions of Word – although the way to get to the necessary dialog has changed:

In the Paragraph group in the Home tab, click on the Multilevel List button, and then on “Define New Multilevel List” (note that you do this whether you are creating a new multilevel list for the first time, or whether you are modifying an existing list) – this will bring up the “Define new multilevel list” dialog, which is functionally the same as the “Customize Outline Numbered List” dialog from earlier versions of Word.

Another change from earlier versions is that you can’t access this dialog via modifying an associated style (‘drilling to China’ via Modify > Format > Numbering) – going that way brings you to a dead end in Word 2007.

What little use I’ve made so far of the “Define New List Style” feature in Word 2007 has convinced me to avoid it – when I try to define list styles this way, I end up with broken lists.

Gary

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