Word 2010 - list number style wont restart at 1

Good point, but I think that especially inexperienced users find the steps at http://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html to be a lot of work. Of course, anyone who knows about templates can then easily re-use numbering by creating a template with the appropriate numbered (and unnumbered) styles.

Hi Deborah. Your post was a while back now but I'm replying anyway to help all the other angry people out there with this stupid problem. I had the same issue with a particular list that wanted to continue from the previous list no matter what I did to restart it. An I tried all the methods suggested.

In the end the solution was simple. I right-clicked where I wanted the numbering to restart and Set the Numbering Value to zero. That seemed to short-circuit the problem. After that I was able to restart again at 1.

But it also reset the previous list to start at zero too so I had to go back and correct that too so check on that.

Click in the first level 1 item in your list. Click Home tab | Multilevel List | Define New Multilevel List (yes, the command is misleading). In the dialog box, verify that level 2 is set to restart after level 1, that level 3 is set to restart after level 2, etc.

Also, how are you applying your list? Was it created with a list style? With a paragraph style for each numbering level?

Thanks to your hints, I have found what I was looking for.

It shouldn't have to be so painful.

As you say,"the command is misleading".  After initially creating a list style, I was tearing out my hair trying to find a way to modify it.

It is even more confusing in German, which is the language of my Office 365 GUI.

As a result of my many attempts, my document is now littered with different list styles.

They don't seem to have names, nor can I find a way to delete the superfluous ones.

How can I get rid of the ones I don't want?

When similar ones exist, how can I tell which one I am using?

I have tried to isolate the list style I want to use by adding it to the library, but then I am unable to change it.  Any change I make creates a new list style, which is *not* in the library.

I have removed my original list style from the library, mde the needed changes and recomitted it to the library.  Even after selecting large portions of the document and applying this list style, severly portions of the selection are still using other list and/or paragraph styles.

How can I apply this style without having to select and check each paragraph individually?

Furthermore, even after doing this on an individual paragraph basis, I still had a 3rd level list which failed to restart! 

I finally had to select the entire document to apply the desired list style: heaven help me should this happen to a document with non-list elements.

Most frustrating is that this is even necessary at all.

As I mentioned in my original post, in earlier versions of Word (e.g. Word 2000) numbering worked as one would expect.  If numbered paragraphs were interrupted by a different style, the numbering would automatically restart, and one could still format them (IIRC either individually or at the style level) to continue the previous numbering if that was needed.

What is the use of Word 2013's default use in numbering formats of restart with a number based on the previous list?

Wouldn't this be that exception rather than the rule?

If it makes sense to use restart at all, why defeat it by adding a starting number other than 1?

By forcing one to edit the start of each new numbered group by hand, It makes ordinary numbered styles useless for all but the simplest applications.

I am a heavy user of outlining in Word, which is very useful for large and complex documents.  Nonetheless, I don't want to have to create a new numbering style and corresponding formats for each differently styled document, regardless of size and complexity.  Sometimes one has to deal with "inherited" documents, which don't necessarily use the styles and structures one would use when starting from scratch.  The document which led me to look up this post is 3 pages long, and the amount of effort required to format it properly is completely disproportionate.

I too would like to restart the numbered lists my document. I know how to manually restart the lists throughout the document but is there a macro available that could do this for me?

I have Word 2010.  I did try the method suggested by Shauna Kelly but I did something wrong along the way. It was very frustrating to say the least but I did try the method as outlined by Shauna.

Is there a macro that will restart every numbered list in my document?

Thanks!

Sue

Please note that Word and WordPerfect are very different programs. Experience of one program won't necessarily be useful in the other...

Whenever you want to change the indentation in an existing numbered list, the link I already posted (http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/NumberAlignment2007.htm#NumberedLists) should be helpful. Did you try it?

However, in the long run, as Doug has already mentioned, setting up an outline list is the best way to control restarts. See http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html.