Words on a page

Numbered lists in Microsoft Word are broken; the situation in OpenOffice.org Writer isn’t much better I’m afraid. If you have a document that contains several numbered lists, don’t be surprised if something goes wrong with the automatic numbering. Usually, this involves a new list continuing from the previous one — for example, the previous list ends at 6, and the next one starts at 7.

This problem will affect all of the subsequent lists in your document. Right clicking on the first number in the list and selecting Continue from previous list may nor may not help.

This usually happens if you click the Numbering icon on the Word tool bar. But it can also happen if you set up a new numbered list style.

Instead of using Word’s built-in numbering, try doing this:

• Create a new style.
• Insert sequence fields to create the numbers in the list.

Creating the new style

To create the new style, do the following:

1. Select Format > Styles and Formatting, and then click New Style.
2. On the New Style dialog box, type a name for the new style — like Step or My Numbered list — in the Name field.
3. Click the Format button, and then select Paragraph. Use the following settings for the Step paragraph style:
   • Left indentation: 0.5 inches
   • Hanging: 0.25 inches
   • Spacing after: 6pt
4. Click the Tabs button.
5. On the Tabs dialog box, create a new tab at 0.75″.
6. Click OK on both the Tabs and Paragraph dialog boxes.
7. On the New Style dialog box, click Add to template and then click OK.

From there, apply the new style to your numbered list.

Inserting sequence fields

The actual numbering will be taken care of by a pair of sequence fields.

To insert the sequence fields, do the following:

1. Put the cursor at the beginning of the first item in the list.

2. Select Insert > Field.

3. In the Field Name List on the Field dialog box, click on Seq.

4. In the Field Codes box at the top right, type SEQ Step \r 1 and then click OK.

   This creates the first number in your field. You’ll have to add a period and a tab after the field.

For the subsequent items in the list, do the same as above. In step 4, however, enter SEQ Step \n in the Field Codes box.

You can copy and paste the fields as you need them. To update the numbering of a list, just highlight it and press F9.

Related posts:

1. To do lists
2. Putting your todo list on your (Windows) desktop
3. Using multiple signatures in Gmail

This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under advice, software, tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.