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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.
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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).
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.
Did anyone ever solve this for you? Funny, I was having the same issue and it really was a simple fix; that is, after I figured it out. I couldn't find an answer anywhere and here is one of those places. In 2010, Just double click on the "A" or first letter/number of the list you want to restart, and then right click, where you will have the option to choose restart list.
This is a rather old thread, by now. I don't remember if the possibility of restarting via the right-click (context) menu was ever discussed. Sometimes, that option may be preferrable (as you have noticed).
That said, note that using the right-click menu means that you force a restart on the list. It sets a "restart marker" which overrides the numbering format. A more robust approach is letting higher levels of a multilevel list restart lower levels.
Did anyone ever solve this for you? Funny, I was having the same issue and it really was a simple fix; that is, after I figured it out. I couldn't find an answer anywhere and here is one of those places. In 2010, Just double click on the "A" or first letter/number of the list you want to restart, and then right click, where you will have the option to choose restart list.
"Greyed out"... After some serious research I found out why it was greyed out in my own docs and how to solve! Here it is.
I had lots of tracked changes, incl. ones that included the numbering etc. That seems to confuse Word. I accepted all changes around that numbered paragraph and...... instatntly the "Restart at 1" re-appeared! Hoorah. SORTED!
Lesson learned: don't make it too difficult for Word, especially not with Tracked Changes!
What you are describing is a known limitation: As long as you are tracking changes, auto numbering and field results will not display properly. As you have noticed, accepting changes (and turning off the tracking) fixes it.
I believe the post to which you are responding discusses restarts in multilevel lists, though, not restarting via the right-click/context menu.