Re: PageMaker 6.0 Numbered Lists

[Roger Morency <rogerm -at- ONTARIO -dot- COM>]

Sorry Jane, but I looked it up too, and the automatic numbering PageMaker
provides does not do what I originally described.

First of all, you cannot, as far as I can tell, add leading characters to
the automatically generated numbers. I would like PM to automatically
instert the word "Step", followed by a space, followed by the number,
followed by a colon. PM only lets me specify the colon (seperator).

Secondly, the numbering is NOT automatically updated when I insert a step
into a list of already numbered steps. From PageMaker online help, "Make
sure your numbering scheme is final before using this technique; if the
paragraphs change, the numbers are not updated automatically." So, even if
I could do the above, I would have to re-apply the utility or style to the
sequence of steps.

Also note that when re-applying the numbering utility I have the option of
re-applying to every paragraph in a selection or every paragraph of style
XXX in the document. My documents contain several sets of step lists, each
starting at number one. If I re-apply to the entire document, then it
numbers every line defined by style XXX sequentially. That obviously will
not work. But then if I simply decide to re-apply the numbering to a
selected block of text, I no longer have the option of specifying style
XXX, so every paragraph gets numbered. My steps often contain a paragraph
or two of explanatory text before I go on to the next step. These are
defined by a different style than the actually step paragraph. If I could
specify that the numbering be applied only to style XXX for a selected
block of text, I would be closer to a solution. PM, unfortunately, does not
appear to allow me to do this.

So no, I'm not kidding! Any other suggestions?

It is really pathetic that PM cannot do this. I really hope you (or
someone) can prove me wrong.

Thanks,

Roger


>On 13 Jan 97 at 10:52, Roger Morency wrote:
>
>> I was wondering if anyone knows of a macro or trick that will
>> automatically number steps in a procedure using PM6? I know
>> Framemaker will do this easily, but in PageMaker, I it seems that I
>> have to type in the every step. Example:
>>
>> Step 1:  blah blah blah
>> Step 2:  blah blah blah
>> Step 3:  blah blah blah
>>      .
>>      .
>>      .
>> Step N:  blah blah blah
>>
>> This gets really annoying when a step has to be added near the
>> beginning of a sequence. I have to manually go in and re-number each
>> subsequent step. Since our doc department has several writers using
>> this style for numbered procedures, a macro or some other way to
>> automate this task would be a big time saver.
>>
>> Thanks for the help.
>>
>> Roger
>
>You're kidding, right? PageMaker does automatic numbering with no
>problems.... You can set it up individually for paragraphs or as a
>style. I just looked in the online help under "Numbering" to make
>sure the help is there....
>
>Jane Bergen
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> "my opinions are my own..."
> Jane Bergen, Technical Writer
> janeb -at- answersoft -dot- com
> AnswerSoft, Inc.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
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