chapter numbering, appendix numbering, figure numbering and cross referencing

[ACAN Secretariaat]

Ok this is my problem for formatting my final thesis report:

1) i have 7 chapters numbered from 1 to 7 being prefixed by 'Chapter '
2) i have 15 references numbered A to O being prefixed by 'Reference'
3) all chapters and references are in separate documents and I would like to
use a master document to combine them
4) i want to use cross referencing to use e.g. the field value: Reference D
in my main documents, but since I am not sure of the order of the
references, I don't want to change this by hand everytime two references
change in order
5) all figures, tables, graphs, etc. must have the next format: 'Figure
<Chapter/Reference nr.>-<Order in chapter/appendix>

I would actually have this all automated with autonumbering and stuff, but I
can't get it to work. I am using Word 97 but can switch to Word 2000 if that
eases up this problem.

Can someone please help me with this problem?

Geoffrey Stoel
g.st_remove_...@acan.nl

drop the _remove_for_spam_ part of the email to send me some....

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Geoffrey:

ABANDON ALL HOPE OF MASTER DOCUMENTS right now :-)

If you use the master document feature in any version of Word, you
irretrievably corrupt all of your documents (eventually). You lose some or
all of the text when this happens.

If your total page count is less than a thousand, you will be quite safe
using one long document. Word 2000 is a better bet than Word 97, it has
less bugs in it.

If you are producing a book with more than a thousand pages in it, you will
need to use the RD (Referenced Document) field to string all the individual
documents together. It's not worth the effort for anything shorter.

Note that your difficulties with autonumbering stem from the fact that it
*is* complex, and you need to systematically prepare the documents before
applying it or it doesn't work properly. Here's how to sort it out. Please
work slowly and carefully through this procedure: one of the difficulties is
that everything depends upon everything else :-)

1. Before you start, choose the document whose formatting is closest to
what you want the final formatting to be.

2. Make sure all the formatting is applied using styles.

It is best to remove any direct formatting overrides (except bold
and italics). Create new styles if you need to, but try not to have any
direct formatting left.

3. Now, save that document, then save it again as a template. Give it
a descriptive name.

4. Now delete all the text from the template, save it again and close
it.

5. For each file, use Tools>Templates and Add-ins to attach the
template you have just created. Make sure you check the "Automatically
Update Styles" box.

6. Save and close each document.

7. Now, re-open each document, go to Tools>Templates and Add-ins and
clear the "Automatically update styles" box. Save and close each one.

The Automatically Update Styles box caused Word to import the styles
from your new template to update the styles in all the component documents.
You want this to happen. However, it also resets all the numbered lists in
each document: you do NOT want this to happen once you have set their
starting numbers. So you must turn it off :-)

8. Now, go through the subdocuments, and as far as possible, remove the
direct formatting.

The brute force method is to select all the text and hit Ctrl + Q,
then Ctrl + SpaceBar. This hammers everything back to the style formatting
instantly, but it also removes all your bold, italic and any wanted special
formatting.

9. Now run through each document and ensure that the correct styles are
applied to each paragraph. Having removed the direct formatting, this
should be easy: the bad ones will stand out. If you don't remove the direct
formatting, you can't see the misfits.

10. Make sure you use the built-in Heading styles for your headings. It
may pay to use a different Heading style for your Reference titles to the
one you use for your Chapter titles. For example, use Heading 1 for Chapter
titles and Heading 2 for sub-sections and Reference titles.

11. Now, create a fresh new document from the new template.

12. Use Insert>File to insert the text from each of the other documents,
one after the other, in the correct order.

13. Place an Odd Page section break after the cover page, and one just
before Chapter 1.

14. If you have page numbering, remove it.

15. Now insert your page numbering into the document footer. It is much
easier to deal with page numbering in the footer when working in a book.
The default is to have the page number as a floating field in the body of
the document: remove this or it will cause trouble.

16. Now click in the section between the cover page and Chapter 1 and
Insert>Page Number>Format and set it to lowercase roman.

17. Now click in the section after chapter 1 and use Insert>Page
Number>Format to set the format to Arabic and include the Chapter number.
Choose the style that the chapters start with (this is usually Heading 1
style).

You can use any style you like for the Chapter headings, but if you
do, you need to know exactly how to set them up for use in the page
numbering and cross-referencing mechanisms. If they're not exactly right,
nothing works. It is a hell of a lot easier to use the built-in Heading
series of styles.

18. Take the time now to get your headers and footers correct. Instead
of using different headers and footers for each chapter, use the StyleRef
field (look it up in the Help) to bring your chapter titles into your
headers.

19. If you wish to use "Different First Page" headers or footers, run
through the document and place an Odd Page section break ahead of each
Chapter.

These section breaks will import all the settings from the master
section break, which is why you spent the time to get that correct first.
If you are using the same left- and right-headers and footers throughout the
book, you do not need these section breaks. The fewer section breaks you
have in a document, the less goes wrong with it.

20. Your Point 4 can now be easily handled by ordinary cross-references.
Simply use Insert>Cross Reference to add them. You will find it is a great
deal easier to cross-reference to a heading than it is to have to insert
bookmarks. However, if you want to use page ranges in your Index, you
require the bookmarks so add them now.

21. Once you have got this far, you can now use the Insert>Caption
feature to number your Figures, tables, etc. Click the Numbering button and
ensure you check Include Chapter Number and choose the correct style for the
chapter titles (usually, Heading 1). You need check this box once only,
it's either on or off for the whole document.

Unless you are forced to include the chapter number in page numbering and
captions, I wouldn't. Readers hate it because it makes the book difficult
to use. It's a nasty old hold-over from the days of hot metal printing
presses and typewriters when pages were laid up individually. There's no
excuse for it these days. And readers hate it!

Hope this helps.

In microsoft.public.word.numbering on Thu, 14 Sep 2000 16:45:41 +0200, "ACAN
Secretariaat" <g.s...@acan.nl> wrote:

Please post follow-up questions to the newsgroup so that all may follow the thread.

John McGhie <jo...@mcghie-information.com.au>
Consultant Technical Writer
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Sydney, Australia (GMT +10 hrs) +61 (04) 1209 1410