First step in tidying up a messy document that arrived at my desk: replace not-quite-working autonumbering with SEQ. First observation: the numbering in the body is now as it should be, but has disappeared from the navigation pane. Is this a feature, or is there some way to have the numbered headings showing there as well?

Numbered _headings_ do show up in the navigation pane. SEQ fields do not. They are not headings although they can be used in headings (in which case they would show up as part of the heading). If you are using heading styles for your numbering though, you can skip the SEQ fields and set your headings up using the instructions here: How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Word 2007 and Word 2010. If you use the heading styles, they can also be used to automatically generate a table of contents. They are easier to mess up than SEQ fields, though. You have to follow those instructions!

Why use Microsoft Word’s built-in heading styles?

SEQ fields will only show up in the Navigation pane if they are added to paragraphs that are formatted in a built-in heading style (or in a custom style with the "Outline level" attribute set to something other than "Body Text").

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Thanks for casting some light on this. If the original document comes back to haunt me, I'll look again and try to find out how the navigation pane showed the heading text – which, indeed, I would suspect implies correct use of outline levels – but not the SEQ.

I have in front of me 2 documents in which the headings are formatted in custom styles with outline levels set. The headings are numbered with SEQ fields. The numbers do not show in the navigation pane. Thoughts? Win Enterprise 7, Word 2013.

It works here without problems.

Did you make sure to put the SEQ field in the same paragraph as the heading?

Attached Images

OutlineTest.PNG (77.8 KB, 17 views)

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Yes, absolutely. I'm trying to send you a screen shot of it but can't figure out how to get the image off my own hard drive.

To upload a file, click the Go Advanced button below the Reply box; you may have to scroll down a bit to see the options for adding an attachment. You can add an attachment in Word format, which would be even more useful.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Dummy file.docx

The file dummy file.docx (assuming it all worked correctly) is a specially created, much shorter version of one of the documents. I can't send the originals because they are too long and are not yet for public release. But the headings are in exactly the same form, including the fields. Incidentally, I tried unlinking one of the fields--no good. Unlinking both fixes the problem, of course, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

The file capture2.jpg is the screenshot I wanted to include last time. This is how the headings in one of the real documents are showing at present.

Attached Images

Capture2.JPG (22.1 KB, 17 views)

It gets weirder. I have both documents open and am editing both. One is now displaying the heading numbers in the nav pane in full. The other is not. As far as I can tell there are no relevant differences in options settings. Just to top it off, the nav pane in one window sometimes shows the headings from the other document.

In fact, taking a second look--one document's headings are displaying correctly in its nav pane, and for the other document, some are and some aren't.

UPDATE: Fixed it!
The heading styles in both documents are the same and are pretty tightly controlled--both documents were created from the same custom template and one originated as a copy of the other. I accidentally discovered that selecting a heading and pressing Ctri-Space fixed the problem for one heading--evidently there was some sort of character format issue (too subtle to be obvious on the screen) involved. But even odder was that after I fixed a few headings like this, the problem disappeared for all of them.
Thoughts?

BTW I just noticed that I'm a novice according to Microsoft. I've grown grey using Word--I started with Microsoft Word with Word for Windows version 1 back in 1991, and I've used pretty well every version since, on both platforms. I found out about SEQ fields very early on and have been using them (and other fields) ever since. Please don't let Microsoft take them away!

If you are referring to "Novice" listed under your screen name here, it reflects (I believe) the number of posts you have made (the moderators will be able to tell you what it reflects, specifically).

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

My guess is that you had inadvertently formatted the "lost" SEQ field as hidden. (There is a built-in keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Shift+H, which you may have pressed by mistake.) Pressing Ctrl+SpaceBar reverts to the character formatting in the underlying paragraph style.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

This is what I am seeing.
00 deleteme 1.png

Another (remote) possibility is that there is a Style Separator after the number, meaning that the number is in a separate Word paragraph even though you don't see it that way.

But the style separator should be visible with nonprinting marks displayed.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional