Numbering

[Fay]

After looking a John McGhie article on Word's Numbering Explained I not sure
I got it all figured out.

Is this the most appropriate methods to create Heading numbers?
For heading numbering: should assign to Heading styles using Format | Style
| change based on to No Style for heading 1 and base following headings on
the previous heading (i.e. Heading 2 based on H 1 etc)
Format | Numbering | Outline Numbering using the one of the styles with
Heading or Article in the display.
Make sure you use the same style on each of the following heading
levels.

Actually I guess the best thing to ask is how do you personally apply
numbering for the most stable numbering results in headings, outline lists,
and simple lists? Which is the best approach for technical writing
situations and for the average corporate user?

Thank you for your time and input.

Fay

[Fay]

I sent this once about an hour ago and haven seen it show up. I am sorrow if
it repeats.

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I read your first post about an hour ago. Are you connecting directly to
msnews.microsoft.com?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word

"Fay" <fyo...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:eJ7tH6WRCHA.2548@tkmsftngp12...

[Anne Lambert]

Hi Fay

I think I'm being fair in translating and summarizing John McGhie's advice as: Never use Format | Bullets and Numbering.

Instead, do *everything* to do with numbering through styles.

Hope this helps.

Anne

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" <sbar...@mvps.org> wrote in message news:eHsEFoXRCHA.844@tkmsftngp08...

[Margaret Aldis]

Hi Fay

This is the strategy I evolved in response to the numbering problems
that first appeared in Word 97, and it seems to have proved reliable and
stable through the various SR and other 'fixes' to 97/2000 and is now in
use with Word 2002. I also set up some templates for someone using Word
on Mac (Word 8, I think) and it worked fine there too.

This is used in a corporate situation - currently about 500 users and
about 10 base templates each with an A4 and a US letter version.
However, my own technical writing background and the need for
reusability of technical specifications and so on (e.g. cut and paste,
importing files) strongly influenced my decisions.

Firstly, my approach is completely style-based, and I wanted to ensure
that I could update styles from the template in order to update
documents with any later changes - over time this has proved fully
justified! One of my earliest problems with numbering was the list
gallery 'musical chairs' effect of updating styles from the template,
and thanks to help from Bill Coan I found that this was solved by
setting up the numbering styles using VBA. It may be that in later
versions of Word and providing you use a named list template in the
Format - Bullets and Numbers - Customize dialog this is no longer
necessary, but personally that's the method I stick with.

So, when if I am setting up a brand new template, I set up all numbered
styles via macros. In general these macros are hidden from the user
(they are never needed again since the update styles from template now
works). However, I have found it useful to offer a number/unnumber
styles option to make it easy to swap between numbered headings (in
technical reports) and unnumbered ones (in Marketing documents).

The styles attached to list templates this way include ordinary headings
(using the standard Heading 1 etc.), Appendices (designed to print
'Appendix A' etc. and then number A.1 etc.), a few odd styles that
include predefined text created using a pseudo numbered style, and of
course bulleted and numbered lists.

For the bulleted list item styles I use List Bullet, List Bullet 2 and
List Bullet 3, and attach these to three levels of an outline list
template (the reason I use an outline list for bullets is just so that
the standard 'Increase indent' command works neatly.)

For the numbered list, I use the standard styles List Number, List
Number 2 and so on. However, in order to use strict style-based
numbering, I also have an additional dummy style used to restart the
list. So the dummy style is assigned to the first list level of an
outline list template, the List Number style to the second and so on.

The final key aspect of this strategy is to provide users with a fully
customised toolbar, so that they have easy ways of applying styles, and
of restarting lists by inserting the dummy list style. This means
removing the standard bullet and number buttons, and replacing them with
your own.

I wouldn't stick my neck out to recommend this as a 'best' approach -
there are as ever with Word many different ways of tackling the problem,
and different needs and views, but I can report that it seems to have
worked well over time and with a wide range of different types of users
- I rarely find I have to fix numbering, and if I do I can do it
'cleanly' by reapplying styles.

Margaret

In article <#9BZ1GWRCHA.2256@tkmsftngp08>, Fay <fyo...@ix.netcom.com>
writes

--

Margaret Aldis, Syntagma, e-mail Margare...@syntagma.co.uk

"Civilisation advances by extending the number of important
operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in battle - they are
strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must
only be made at decisive moments." A N Whitehead