Word 2010 - list number style wont restart at 1

Anonymous
2013-01-29T15:06:46+00:00

I am using the default list numbering in a pretty basic but large (450 page) document.  No macros, no custom styles...I am simply using the default headers and the list numbering.

the trouble all started when i decided it would look better to left align the list numbering.  When I have done this type of thing with regular headers there has never been a problem.  You can easily apply new formatting and apply to the entire document. 

With the List Number style this didnt work.  I found online a suggestion of using the Set Numbering Value at 1 each time which I have been doing for over 2 weeks now but the lists keep reassigning the starting numbers arbitrarily so some lists start at 98 and others at 74 and on and on.  I keep changing them back to start at 1 but again they reset themselvs.

This is an instruction manual so there are alot of short lists (steps on what to do) within alot of sections.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-08-27T22:43:03+00:00

    Forget I mentioned it.

    I'm sorry to have stopped in on a word processor discussion.

    Actually, it wasn't a "word processor discussion" until you made it one. The topic is numbering in Word, which can certainly be confusing and difficult to set up, but it can be done. Stable numbering requires a lot of work.

    That said, clearly Word is a word processor, meaning that it has the advantages and disadvantages of a word processor...

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-27T21:14:08+00:00

    Forget I mentioned it.

    I'm sorry to have stopped in on a word processor discussion.

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  3. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-08-27T14:24:35+00:00

    If "control" means that you want something which is more like page layout software then, yes, Word isn't the proper tool.

    Word does handle the topic of this thread: restarting numbered lists. You will have to set them up properly, of course.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-08-27T13:49:56+00:00

    That is why anyone who writes serious technical documentation for a living uses an editor that allows for typographic control.

    MS Word is an all-purpose tool that all sorts of things un-related creating anything more complex than a memo. Hence, the utter lack of useful typographic tools and their Byzantine GUI and context menus.

    Word is wonderful if you want a colourful table, but....

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  5. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-07-06T22:09:02+00:00

    Note that manual restarts are usually an unnecessarily convoluted way to deal with numbered paragraphs. Making use of multilevel numbering will be more stable (though a bit time-consuming to set up).

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