I have finally managed to get my headings and subheadings numbered correctly, but the way they are formatted on the page is inconsistent. As you can see from the screenshot, heading 7.4 is indented further than 7.5 and there is a bigger gap between the number and the text. However when I compare the two in the "Reveal formatting" pane, it tells me that there is no difference between the two.



How can I make my level 2 headings display consistently with each other?
SharedScreenshot.jpg

• Number Alignment by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Ribbon Versions of Word by Shauna Kelly

From your screen shots, both samples have the number starting half a centimeter or so in from the left hand side so I would think that is consistent.

The tab space after the 7.4 sample but not visible in the 7.5 sample could imply that there is also a tab after the 7.5 but the following text is hiding it because a default tab stop was reached (and 4 is fractionally wider than 5). We would need to see the ruler in your screenshots (or preferably your actual document) to be sure what is causing the space to collapse.

Read the references that Charles has provided and you will get a better understanding on what is going on with your document.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

For the 7.4 paragraph, the tab appears to "skip" a custom tab and go directly to the following default tab stop. You will have to adjust the tab stop position in the multilevel list; see Number Alignment (Ribbon) (Charles has already posted this link).

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Thanks for your replies. Setting tabs for the heading style was what I needed to do. Presumably without them Word was filling in with arbitrary values from more than one source.

Just throwing this out there as another potential idea (and I realize some will disagree with this).

Over the years I have simply abandoned using Word's numbering in numbered headings (although yes, using Styles helps greatly). I have preferred creating a style with the desired indentation and tab settings (but not a numbered style), and manually entering my numbers. Although that seems like a lot of work, I've been driven bonkers enough times by autonumbering that I found it the lesser of two evils. It's probably not practical for documents that might grow over time, but if you are working with a final draft, it's another way to go.

To each his or her own.

• You will save yourself work and frustration by learning and using Shauna's techniques for automatic numbering. How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Ribbon Versions of Word by Shauna Kelly
• You need not use the built-in heading styles but using them has real advantages. Why use Microsoft Word’s built-in heading styles? by Shauna Kelly

Those are nice resources. Thanks for sharing Charles.

Here is my chapter on Numbering. It is not an easy read nor all that well organized.
Numbering in Microsoft Word
A good alternative to list numbering (for those not willing to follow Shauna's advice) is the SEQuence Field saved as AutoText.

Manual numbering is fine for shorter documents, with perhaps one numbering level and few chapters. It will of course be a nightmare to maintain for more complex documents that require chapter numbering.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I manually number dissertations of a couple hundred pages and many sections/subsections and prefer it that way, but again this is for a final document formatting, so sections aren't being added/deleted/moved/etc. For a document that is still in progress, sure, I'd probably use the autonumbering.

I admit I haven't put enough effort into taming numbering with styles and should do so, but I've encountered enough annoyances with them over the years that I just whip them out quickly and painlessly.

Of course, manual numbering is never impossible, but if you combine heading numbering, appendix numbering and perhaps also caption numbering, it would certainly be a difficult task to do it manually.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

I went through law school and grad school with a typewriter, so of course it can be done. Doesn't mean I want to. I used index cards for my citations back then, as well.