Macro to Restart Numbering

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

All:

When futzing around with Word's Spaghetti Numbering, I quite often have to
persuade Word to restart the numbering of the current list.

I am a technical writer: I do lots and lots of numbered lists: like, one
every page. Sometimes, they all decide to number themselves sequentially
from the start of the manual. A four-step list that begins with "Step 267"
is unconvincing to most readers. I wanted a quick way to change that to
"Step 1".

Drilling down in the Format/Bullets and Numbering dialog to do this is a
real pain, with the added excitement of running the risk that you may change
the paragraph you are in to be a member of a different list from the other
paragraphs in the document. And that's a real pisser: it makes the
Spaghetti Numbering WORSE!

So I developed the following macro. It "asks" the current paragraph which
list it is a member of, and then restarts that list at the paragraph the
cursor is in. This means that the only thing that changes is the starting
number, so you do not run the risk of screwing up all the rest of the
numbering in the document. If anyone's interested, I have another flavour
of the macro that forces all paragraphs with a nominated style to be members
of the SAME list, which is goodness in a professional document :-)

What "actually" happens is quite technical: The macro "breaks" the list at
that paragraph and divides it in two, closing the first half at the closest
numbered paragraph ABOVE the cursor (which might be several pages back) and
starting a NEW list with the paragraph the cursor is in.

This paragraph begins its numbering at whatever you set the starting number
of the original list to be. If you set it to begin at 10, that's what it
will start with. Most people never change the "Start At" value, so the list
will almost always start with "1".

I have this macro on a toolbar button because I seem to use it a hell of a
lot in Word 97...

Sub RestartNumber()
'
' RestartNumber Macro
' Macro recorded 24/11/99 by John McGhie
'

Dim ThisList As ListTemplate
Set ThisList = Selection.Range.ListFormat.ListTemplate

Selection.Range.ListFormat.ApplyListTemplate ListTemplate:=ThisList,
ContinuePreviousList:=False, ApplyTo:=wdListApplyToWholeList
End Sub

Standard warranty applies: "If it screws your document, Sorry!" So run it
on a COPY of your valuable document, OK!

Enjoy.

[Pete Williams]

Hi John -

Thanks for posting this macro - very useful. I work in a law firm have
constant battles with Word's crazy numbering system!

There is just one thing which you or someone else more knowledgeable
than me might know. Why does when you restart numbering, Word insists
on modifying the underlying paragraph style of the previous paragraph
of the same numbering group? i.e. if you have four levels of numbering
as laid out below and you restart the numbering for the next para to
begin at level 1 (Marked in brackets)it changes the style of para 4 by
amending the indentation - say it was hanging now it's not or it's made
it First???

1. para 1
1.1 para 2
1.1.1 para 3
1.1.1 para 4

(1. para 5)

I'm confused. It seems to me that Word has a mind of it's own - only
it's alien mind!!!!

Anyway, any bright ideas on why this happens and any solutions
gratefully received.

Regards

Pete

In article <e7rp4ssgl70p0sp4p...@4ax.com>,

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Pete:

The answer to your question "Why?" is "Because that's the way they made it!"

I assume you would like to know what to do about it :-)

There is a bug in Word 97 that copies the attributes wrongly between the
List Template and the Paragraph Format.

You will find that whenever you touch the List Format (the numbering), Word
updates the Paragraph Format (as it must) but it places the hanging indent
measurement in the paragraph left indent, adds the original left indent to
the hanging indent value, and alters the Special property from Hanging to
First Line.

It's a mess!

The easiest thing to do is record yourself a macro while you put one right.
While recording, use Format/Style/Numbering first, the
Format/Style/Paragraph. It's best to do both together without closing the
dialog. Note that the order is important: you must do Numbering first,
because it fucks up the paragraph properties, which you then must put right.

Put the result on the toolbar, and use it whenever you want to do this.

The effect of this is that the macro forces ALL the numbering in the
document into the format you set.

Hope this helps.

On Wed, 15 Dec 1999 16:54:18 GMT, Pete Williams <will...@my-deja.com>
wrote: