I'm building a fairly complicated contract with multilevel numbering. Everything was working swimmingly; I sent it to the client to review and it... broke. Upon sending it back to me, my Heading 1/Style 1 formatting wasn't working.



The top level heading is linked to style Heading 1. Within 'Define new multilevel list' dialog, I've defined Heading 1 to be:
"ARTICLE [auto-generated #] -"
Rather than the style I've defined, anything with Heading 1 just shows up as a black block. The first attachment shows what's happening. That should read: "ARTICLE 2 - GENERAL PROVISIONS"

A quick fix within the multilevel list creator, right? That's where things get weird. The second attachment shows that under "Enter formatting for number" there's nothing, even though the example within the dialog box shows it to be functioning properly.

Clicking 'Font' brings up the third and final weirdness. The third attachment shows the error that the number must be between 1 and 600 – this comes up before I even have a chance to type a number! When this was working properly, the point size was 8 pt.

Any insight or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Attached Images

	Word multilevel numbering problem 1.png (35.4 KB, 29 views)
	Word multilevel numbering problem 2.png (51.5 KB, 28 views)
	Word multilevel numbering problem 3.png (50.8 KB, 28 views)

Real quick, did you followed the instructions outlined in Numbered Headings? If not, you might do well by going back and closely review the instructions to make sure you did not miss something. These instructions, in my view, are the Bible for this type of application.

Thank you, JimP. As far as I can tell, I did everything as laid out in the instructions you provided. Just for grins, I started with a blank document and did it all again. Everything works swimmingly – for now. What concerns me is that is used to work fine before, as well. It wasn't until I sent it to the client for review that it got scrambled.

Shauna's article gives instructions for bulletproof numbering. Unfortunately, it is not idiot-proof or child-proof. If you follow the instructions and if styles are used to invoke numbering in the document, it will work, every time. It is that second if that can get you. If people go back to the numbering buttons to apply numbering, it will break.

If you are attaching the styles to the built-in headings, make sure your users know about the built-in keyboard shortcuts to invoke them. If other outline-level headings, consider attaching keyboard shortcuts for those or making sure they show up in the Quick-Styles gallery.

Thank you, Charles Kenyon. So far as I know, the client didn't try to adjust any numbering. Since the problem I encountered is that the defined style was displaying just a block of black (rather than, say, mis-numbering the list), I'm inclined to believe the problem goes deeper than a mere numbering hiccup. I'm wondering if it's a problem between different versions of Word.

You do not appear to have a multilevel list style defined as there is no name in this field in your screenshot.

Regards
Janine

Janine, I'm not sure I follow; in what field would/should the multilevel list style be named?

Hi,

See screenshot of your screenshot.

Your numbering is corrupt. It happens.

Define a new List Style named, say, List_xxxxx and set your numbering levels 1-9. You can attach your named styles to each Outline List Level as you create your outline.
Put the name of your list List_xxxxx in the ListNum field list name it replicates to each level.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Janine

Attached Images

ListNum Field list name.jpg (33.8 KB, 28 views)