It sounds as if you used the numbered style and then applied direect formatting to the part you did not want to look like a heading.. Attach your numbering to styles and use those styles to apply the numbering.



If you use automatic paragraph numbering or bullets read Shauna Kelly's directions on numbering and bullets. Start with How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Word 2007 and Word 2010. For large documents you must follow these directions or you will lose your hair!
(Mac version: Outline Numbering in Word for macOS - Best Practices - Brandwares)

This may seem a bit convoluted at first, but it really is not. Just follow the steps. Shauna Kelly's instructions use the built-in heading styles, but you can use any existing paragraph styles including your custom styles. There are, however advantages to using the built-in heading styles when you create a Table of Contents. Here are some more advantages: Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly Note, you can modify these built-in styles to look exactly the way you want.

Videos on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He_ob8ydc9E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbyTcWo52G4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GevZOS-nCuw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niD6VXPvAyU

The basic idea is that the numbering is set using the Define MultiLevel List dialog with each numbering level being attached to an existing paragraph style. Once you have this set up, you should not use the buttons for numbering in the Ribbon but rather apply the appropriate style for that level.

You can save a document with this as a template for future documents if you want so you will not need to do this every time.

Hi Charles, thanks for your quick answer.

I forgot to mention that:

• I apply the default Heading 1, Heading 2, etc., styles to my chapter titles.
• I create a Section Break (Next Page) at the end of each chapter.

It has worked fine for decades.

These text are tutorials for using the numbered paragraphs and the headings. I started using Word in the early 90's. I gave training courses too. I know all that by heart.

They don't tell how to troubleshoot an erratic numbering.
I tried many tricks including applying to the titles a default style and then reapplying the Heading style, to no avail. I also deleted the Section Breack.


They do look the way I want. This is not the issue. What I want is a consistent numbering of the headings.

I tried to insert an image but one can't import an image from one's computer and somehow it doesn't take Flickr URL. Here is the URL: Numbering Issues. Because of the confidential nature of the document i changed the chapter titles. For some reason the last chapter that was numbered 1 is now numbered 20.

The issue is how to tell the last 3 chapters to follow the numbers.


Regards


Nick

Problem solved!

I was wondering why the last chapter was suddenly numbered "20" whereas it used to be numbered "1" and while the two just before were numbered "1" and "2".
I tried again a trick I already did before:

1. I applied to both faulty titles the default paragraph style. So they disappeared from the Document Map.
2. I deleted the Section Breaks just before them.
3. I created Sections Breaks again.
4. I re-applied the Heading 1 style to the titles.

And voilà. It worked that time! The downside is that the underlying Heading 2 and Heading 3 titles are not corrected and are still numbered "1.1", "1.1.1" and so on so I have to apply the same thing to all of them and i have about 40 of them.

Let's hope it will last! I am now able to send my document.

Regards

Nick