This has never happened before so I'm at a loss.



I have a large complex document that is organized like a legal document (1, 1.1, 1.1.1, etc). The numbering is linked to Heading 1, heading 2, etc. and works fine.

I also have body text 1, body text 2, etc that correspond to the text paragraphs under each heading (for indent alignment)

Under these I sometimes need an itemized list that uses a), b), etc. I have styles for these called Letter 1, Letter 2, etc., also corresponding to the heading (i.e. Letter 3 aligns with Heading 3). I currently only have Letter 1, Letter 3, and Letter 5 defined.

Here's the problem. The second time I try to generate a list using Letter 5, it doesn't start with "a" but rather the next letter in the seq from before which in this cae is "e" (this is not unusual). So per normal habit I right click and tell it to restart at "a" (always worked before). Except in this case is also reverts to Letter 3 style which has the wrong indent. The next paragraph changes correctly to 'b" (from "f") but it stayed with the Letter 5 style and the correct indent.

Anyone know why the style changed with the renumber? I could just manually change the indent but that defeats the purpose of styles...and I've done this for years and it's always worked fine.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide...

Hi Roscoe,

The description suggests your letter 5 style doesn't have its numbering formatted to re-start after whatever the appropriate preceding Heading level is and, when you tell it manually to re-start at 'a', Word finds that the only Style for which that is applicable in the current context is the letter 3 style - to which it adjusts the format. I'm surmising that, if Word didn't do that, you could end up with both a letter 3 style and a letter 5 style with the same number level.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

The "letter x" styles aren't part of a heading scheme...how do you tell it to renumber after another style?

Hi Roscoe,

Ordinarily, you might want your letter 5 style's numbering to re-start after every paragraph in a letter 3 style, so you'd create two multi-level list paragraphs, one with the numbering for the letter 3 style and one for the letter 5 style, the latter being the next level down the multi-level list hierarchy. It's then just a simple matter of applying the Style names to them. Alternatively, since you've already got the Style defined, simply apply the appropriate multi-level list numbering to them, then update the Styles to reflect that. You could also modify the Styles so that the following paragraph that gets created when you press <Enter> defaults to either the same Style or a different one of your choice.

From your original post, it seems you've also got both numberings formatted as alpha. Because of the potential for confusion, that's not how it's normally done - the normal arrangement is for each level to be differentiated from the one above and below by the use of different numbering formats (eg Arabic Numerals, Capital Letters, Roman numerals, Lower-Case letters) and/or by having the numbers in each level incorporate the numbers from one or more of the levels above.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I don't know how to create more than one multi list...I've always built just one using the heading1-9 styles. How do you create one inside of another? I.e. Hedings 1-5 are the main body legal numbering scheme (1.1.1.1.1) with itemized lists thrown in on occasion

I can't control the format imposed on me by my organization. The letter'ed styles are for itemized lists.

I go back to my original question...why did telling a style to restart numbering change the style? I've used this technique since 2007 came out and never had it do this before...

Hi Roscoe,

Without seeing your document, I can't really say with certainty why what you've reported occurred (and even then I might not be able to). I'm glad to hear you're using the Heading Styles but, again, without seeing your document it's hard to say whether the itemized lists are structured as well as they might be. You might find something useful in the articles here: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/...gExplained.htm
and especially:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/...eConflicts.htm
and:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/...artMethods.htm

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]