Word 2010 blacking out numbering for Heading 3 in body and TOC

Anonymous
2011-06-08T17:59:36+00:00

My boss gave me a document to fix. Word 2010 has started blacking out (black box) the number for Heading 3 headers in the body and the TOC. I make the blocking go away by modifying the style numbering, but I can't get the numbering to work properly (won't let me set the numbering at X.X.X for Heading 3).

Has anyone seen this black-blocking on header level numbers (and do you know how to fix it)?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2011-08-16T10:52:02+00:00

And actually, here is a solution which works.

  1. Find a document which has the correct formatting in it.
  2. Save it as a template
  3. In the corrupted (for that is what it is) document go to the styles dialog box. The easiest way to do this is to use CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S, otherwise you have to find your way through the poxy ribbon
  4. Hit the manage style button at the bottom of the box (right hand one of the three)
  5. Hit import/export
  6. in the right hand window of the box which appears, hit close file
  7. Now navigate to the uncorrupted document and select it.
  8. In the scroll box above navigate to the style you want to fix and click on it (single click)
  9. The copy arrow should now poin to the right, toward teh corrupt document
  10. Hit copy
  11. Say yes to everything
  12. Close all dialog boxes

This fixed it for me, hopefully it will work for you.

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Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2015-12-02T00:29:16+00:00

That may not be a permanent fix.

The problem occurs because the font characteristics in the list template have become corrupted and is best fixed by running a macro containing the following code:

For Each templ In ActiveDocument.ListTemplates

    For Each lev In templ.ListLevels

        lev.Font.Reset

    Next lev

Next templ

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Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2011-06-08T22:22:40+00:00

See the article "How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in your Microsoft Word document" on the following page of fellow MVP Shauna Kelly's website:

http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html

If you create a template to hold your numbering scheme, you can use that template as the basis for new documents (using File > New) and the new documents will then inherit your numbering scheme. To do that, see:

Creating a Template - The Basics (Part I) at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm

and Creating a Template (Part II) at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-04-03T05:56:40+00:00

    We are experiencing this same problem.  At first it was just one co-worker on a number of different templates (and documents created from those templates).  I have had no problems until today, when I started investigating this issue on her behalf and saved the dodgy templates onto my hard drive. 

    Today I have opened a document, based on my normal template (ie New > Blank Document) which was created last Thursday, so before the dodgy templates were loaded onto my computer.  It too now has the same issue - seems the level of heading that is affected between the documents is random.  Some are Level 1, some are Level 4 etc...

    Many of these instances are occuring with styles that were created from scratch, others using in-built styles.  It is incredibly frustrating as while there is a work around of apply a "good" template to the bad document, there is no guarantee that the 'good' template will end up with the same corruption.

    Is Microsoft looking at fixing this bug as it is a major issue for those who use heading/numbering styles, which in professional organisations, is a LOT.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-03-25T22:53:23+00:00

    This is the definative anser to this issue:

    http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html 

    You can repair a messed up document (where you get the blacking out numbering, or where numbering falls apart) by going through this process. If there is already a numbering list style defined, you can repair it by going through this procedure to verify everything is in order. I've managed to repair some completely hosed documents (and made really HUGE impressions on coworkers by fixing their docs for them - but SHHHH!  Keep it a secret so we can keep looking like super heros!

    Thanks to Doug Robbins for the original post with the solution.

    Now, on to the other screwed up aspects of Word.

    Such as the non-printing Visio diagrams (which I've found can be repaired by converting to a Word diagram (which doesn't really seem to do anything, since you can still open in visio and edit....)

    • but it seems to fix the non-printing bit).

    M. McKinnon

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