Troubleshooting List Numbering in Word

There's been a lot of talk about numbering in Word recently, and a few frustrated people out there. It's something a lot of us have battled with at some point or other, and you only need to mention Word and numbering in the same sentence to provoke a rather teeth-clenched reaction from many people.

There are times when numbering can get a little wonky and doesn't restart correctly. This article deals with how numbering is handled, where it can go wrong, and how it can be fixed. You should not need to do any post-publish tweaking, and there should be no need for special reset numbering styles.

The first thing to look at is where the numbering isn't restarting. Is it:

1. within lists that are used in the same topic?

   -or-

2. across lists throughout the entire document?

A) Numbering not resetting within the same topic

When it's within the same topic, it usually indicates the way the styles have been defined. Each style has a numbering attribute (defined under the Bullets and Numbering tab). You can choose from:

• None - no numbering is applied, and styles with this attribute will restart any numbered paragraphs preceding it.
• Numbered - sequential numbering is applied. This will also restart any numbered paragraphs preceding it with a lower Outline Level.
• Bulleted - places a character before the paragraph. This will also restart any numbered paragraphs preceding it with a lower Outline Level.
• Skip numbering - no numbering is applied, and any numbered paragraphs will continue numbering in following paragraphs.

When working with multiple list styles, it's also important to understand how the outline level works. The outline level is defined under the Style Definition tab, and this setting determines the level of the list. Lists at a lower level are reset by lists of a higher level.

For example, a list with the outline level 1, will reset the numbering of a list with the outline level 2, but a list at level 1 will not be reset by a list at level 2. A paragraph with no numbering or outline level (such as Body Text) will reset all lists.

B) Numbering not resetting across lists used in the entire document

This ones a little more complicated. Rather than being a setting with the styles in Author-it, this problem occurs when the numbering of the style in the Word template has gotten out of whack, and can produce some rather unusual results.

For example, you may have a topic containing standard body text and a numbered list:

1. List Number

2. List Number

3. List Number

Further down the document you have another topic containing a list and the numbering resets for the first item only. The second item carries on from the previous list:

1. List Number

4. List Number

5. List Number

The next list carries on again:

1. List Number

6. List Number

7. List Number… and so on.

This can also be confirmed by using a different Word Publishing Template. If the numbering is correct using a different template, it's the actual template that is causing the problem.

The good news is that it's very easily corrected.

To Fix the Numbering of the Style:

1. Open the Word Publishing Template (File > Open)
2. Choose Format > Styles and Formatting from the main menu.
3. Locate the style, right click, and choose Modify
4. Choose Format > Numbering and remove the numbering altogether

   

5. Choose OK and then OK again to close the Modify Style dialog.

   Note: These instructions may vary slightly according to the version of MS Word you have installed.

6. Save your changes to the template.
7. Repeat these steps and readd the numbering attributes to the style
8. Republish. The correct numbering should be used.