Re: Numbered list misbehaviour in Word97...

[Geoff Lane <geoff -at- GJCTECH -dot- FORCE9 -dot- NET>]

Below, I've attached John McGhie's reply to a similar question that I
recently posted to one of Microsoft's public newsgroups.

HTH,

Geoff Lane
Cornwall, UK
geoff -at- gjctech -dot- force9 -dot- net

-----Original Message-----
From: John McGhie <john -at- mcghie-information -dot- com -dot- au>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.numbering
Date: 04 October 1998 23:14
Subject: Re: Outline numbered lists (Word 97 SR-1)


>Hi Geoff:
>
>To answer your questions:
>
>1:  Yes, this behaviour is by design.  It's a MAJOR bug :-(
>
>2:  You can't.
>
>The short answer is use SEQ or LISTNUM fields instead.
>
>To explain, let me repeat the answer I just gave Aron, who has the
>same problem:
>
>Aaron:
>
>Yeah, we know it doesn't work :-(  It's actually very badly broken.
>There's an interesting article about it on the Tech-Tav website
>http://www.tech-tav.com that I helped with.
>
>I'll just summarize the problem here for you:
>
>There are three "kinds" of list template, and each contains seven
>flavours, plus "none".
>
>The document and the style contain a pointer to the list template
>number (ordinal number from 0 to 7)
>
>The specifications that determine how the list template works are
>local to the registry of the computer that created them.  E.g. List
>number template 0 to 7 properties are stored in the Registry.  The
>document simply contains a pointer that says this list has template 3
>applied.  It seems not to make any check to see how list template 3 is
>formatted on this computer.
>
>Hence, a document created on one computer using list templates is
>never guaranteed to have any given appearance of list formatting on
>any other computer.
>
>Here are some work-arounds you may wish to explore:
>
>1.  Get the lists the way you want them, then save the document to
>Word 2 format, close it, and re-open it.  This converts all the list
>formatting to hard text that cannot be changed except by editing.
>
>2.  Decide on a company-wide selection of list templates.  Write
>everyone macros that reset their list galleries so that everyone's
>list templates are all the same.  Run the macro each time you apply
>any of the list templates.  This keeps everyone's machines the same,
>so you can move documents around without breaking them.
>
>3.  Write an Auto-open macro that automtically detects whether a
>user's list templates have been changed from their defaults, and
>resets them each time they start up.  This is a variation of 2 above
>but it's simpler to write.  There is a VBA method that will tell you
>with one instruction whether a list template has been altered from its
>default.
>
>4.  Use SEQ or LISTNUM fields for all your numbering.  This is what I
>and many other documentation professionals do.  You make a little
>macro that plops in an AutoText containing the field.  You need one to
>put in the field that rests numbering to "1" and another to put in all
>the subsequent fields that increment the number.  This method is
>rock-solid stable and portable without problems across Mac- and
>Windows-Word all the way back to Word 2.
>
>Because of the inherent limitation of the list templates being stored
>in the individual registry, you can never get Office 97's list
>numbering stable enough for professional use.
>
>So there is no point in trying to address the other problems, those of
>editing producing nested lists in which the ordinal numbering goes
>awry, or the bug that causes really nasty data-loss document
>corruptions if the lists corrupt.
>
>Someone on this list (was it Bill Coan?) was developing a method where
>he applied a name to the list template using VBA, and that after that,
>he was able to get it stable.  I tried it and couldn't get it to work
>(i.e. VBA appears to assign the name to the list template, but it
>actually doesn't...)  Even if you did manage to name the list
>templates, it still does not resolve the problems of editing lists and
>document corruption.
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>On Sun, 4 Oct 1998 16:20:50 +0100, "Geoff Lane"
><geoff -at- gjctech -dot- force9 -dot- net> wrote:
>
>>Hi All,
>>
>>I'm using outline numbering to manage numbered lists within my current
>>project.  Each list can have up to three levels and I've created a style
for
>>each level.  These styles have "Automatically Update" unchecked in the
style
>>properties dialog box.
>>
>>Everything works OK for the first list in the document.  However, I run
into
>>problems when I reset the outline numbering for the second (or subsequent)
>>list.  I'm resetting the numbering as follows:
>>1. From the Format menu, choose Bullets and Numbering
>>2. Select the "Restart numbering" radio button
>>3. Click OK.
>>
>>When I do this, Word reformats the *styles* to the default for the
outline's
>>entry in the Gallery.  This is not what I want to achieve -- I just want
the
>>numbering to restart.  I recorded the action in a macro.  My three mouse
>>clicks turned into 283 lines of code that appears to reset everything in
the
>>7th list template of the Gallery to Word's default.
>>
>>Questions:
>>1. Is this behaviour normal?
>>2. If this is normal, how can I reset numbering for the list without
>>destroying the underlying styles?  BTW, I don't mind writing a line or two
>>of code and attaching that to a commandbar button -- I just haven't found
>>the code to do it *just* for the current list.
>>
>>TIA for any help you can offer,
>>
>>Geoff Lane
>>Cornwall, UK
>>geoff -at- gjctech -dot- force9 -dot- net
>>
>
>
>John McGhie <john -at- mcghie-information -dot- com -dot- au>
>Consultant Technical Writer
>McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
>Sydney, Australia (GMT +10 hrs) +61 (02) 9626 1048
>

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