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  General

  • Word's numbering explained
  • Remove manually typed numbering
  • Safely update a document's styles from its template

  Page Numbering

  • “Page X of Y” displays or prints as “Page 1 of 1,” “Page 2 of 2” (or “Page 2 of 1”) and so on
  • How to control the page numbering in a Word document
  • Why do all the page numbers in my Word 2002 document display as 0?
  • Front matter numbered separately
  • Include the chapter number with the page number

  List Numbering

  • Word's numbering explained
  • Methods for restarting list numbering
  • VBA: Return the number, or list level, or outline level of a paragraph.

  Other

  • Whenever I update my Table of Contents it acquires unwanted tabs
  • Customizing your table of contents with switches
  • Automatic "intentionally blank" page
  • How can I use an AutoNum field but suppress the period after the number or use a different separator character?
  • Create a numbered list using SEQuence fields
  • How to insert captions that include chapter numbers
  • Creating sequentially numbered documents (such as invoices)
  • Sequentially numbering multiple copies of single document using a macro
  • Sequentially numbering multiple copies of single document using a mailmerge

Numbering button

« Table of contents

« Applying numbering

One problem we run into is the List Number Default button on the Formatting toolbar. This is normally called the Numbering button. 

In previous versions of Word, it always applied a predefined list numbering format. In Word 2000, this was changed. It now applies an outline List Template, and the List Template it applies is the one used most-recently by the particular user-ID on that particular computer.

If you select ten paragraphs in Word 2000 and click the Numbering button, the list will be an Outline list by default. There is no indication of this, but each paragraph has become a member of a list that contains nine levels.  To change levels:

• If, on the Edit tab of the Tools + Options dialog, you have the Tabs and Backspace set left indent checkbox ticked, you can change levels by placing your insertion point at the beginning of the paragraph, just after the number, and hit Tab to go down a level, or Shift/Tab to go up a level. Most people don't know this, or why their numbering keeps changing. Exciting, isn't it?
• Fortunately the above option can be turned off and most seasoned Word users do turn it off.  Corporate users (should) have it turned off for them (this is very simple to achieve using an AutoExec macro in an Addin).
• If you have the Tabs and Backspace set left indent checkbox turned off, you can change levels by clicking anywhere in the paragraph and pressing Alt/Shift/Left Arrow to go down a level or Alt/Shift/Right Arrow to up a level (these commands can be dragged onto the toolbar if desired – they are OutlinePromote and OutlineDemote, respectively). 

Let's say I select some paragraphs and choose Format>Bullets and Numbering>Numbered and choose one of the List Templates. This will make the List Template I chose my "Default". From then on, each time I click that button on that computer using that user-ID, I will apply exactly the same List Template. If I have gone further and defined that List Template to associate with a style, whenever I click that button, the List Template and the style will both be applied.

However, if I take the document home, and apply some numbering from there, the numbering applied by that button will be the default List Template on that machine. It will be different: it may also apply a different style. If another user gets hold of the document, the numbering they apply will be different again. Yet all three times the users hit exactly the same button whenever they wanted numbering!