Charles has already answered your question. But I will try to explain further. However, I have Word 2010 version, whereas yours is 2003. So I don't know if all these features are there in 2003 word or not. To get an indepth understanding of numbering please see:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Number...artMethods.htm

Ans to Q1. So far as I know, there is no way to only paste the text with formatting and without the numbering. The only way you could do this is to turn off numbering in the source document, and then copying the relevant portion.

However, you can retain the numbering in two ways:

1. Use paste special and choose unformatted text. This will convert the numbering into hard text, and you will lose some of the indentations, but the numbering sequence will remain as in the source document.

2. Do a normal paste, select the entire pasted text, click on Mulli-level numbering button in the menu (wherever it is located in 2003) and choose "Define New Multilevel list..."
3. Somewhere in that dialog box, there should be a field which says "Start At". The default value in the field will be 1. Change this to whichever number you want. The rest of the numbering will change according to this start number.