I’m working through a large project, creating over 150 document templates. Many thanks to Charles Kenyon for pointing me in the right direction, I have created groups of different templates – reports, letters, forms etc, and have worked out the heading styles and List styles I need. After much angst, I think I now understand the concept of List Styles, to the point that I have set up a List Style attached to my Headings and have set up body text styles based on those Heading styles, so that the numbering of the paragraphs continues from the heading preceding it i.e. 1.0 H1, 1.1 P1, 1.2 H2, 1.1.1 H3, 1.1.1.1 P4.

However, there are a couple of things that I cannot wrap my head round…so once again, I’m asking for advice. The quandary is…

I have three report styles, which need to be combined but also need to be standalone documents in their own right. Each report has a cover page, inside cover, Headers and Footers (first, odd, even) a TOC and Appendices. Each report has multi-level H1-H6 and associated paragraphs, albeit that the List Style changes slightly between each report. Heading styles H7-H9 I’ve reserved for use in Appendices of these three standalone reports.

The heading styles all follow the same styling characteristics, but if my understanding is correct, Heading styles can only associated with one List Style within a document. My question, therefore is how best to handle the combining of these documents into the new sections (I’ve been using ‘import text from file’)?

When they are imported into Report A (List style 1.0, 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.1.1, 1, a), i)), they would be imported into separate Appendices and would need to include the cover, inside cover, header (footer to continue from Report A) their own TOC and the main body of the report (appendices generally not imported). The body of Report C is in table form, but the styling of the headings/body text is the same as the Report A and B, it just the List Style which is slightly different (Section 1, 1.0, 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.1.1). The List Style for Report B is 1.0, 1.1. 1.1.1. 1.1.1.a, 1.1.1.1.).

Would creating two further levels of Heading/paragraph styles specifically for these report types and basing them on H1-H6 styles work? Or do I need to create completely new styles, not based on the built-in Heading styles?

Lastly, some of my reports do not require heading styles with numbering – is there a quick way to detach the List Style from the Heading Styles?

Apologies for all the questions (and the long post!), but I’d be grateful for any enlightenment.