Word 2010 - list number style wont restart at 1

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.

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?

I am now using multi-level lists, but still can't get this to work.

Numbering has been broken at least since Word 2010, if not 2007.

In Word 2013, I can't find a way to have each subsidiary level in a multi-level list automatically restart at 1 for each new group of paragraphs preceded by a higher-level paragraph.  This is the logical behavior, and was also the way previous versions of Word behaved.

In Word 2013, each new group of (indented) paragraphs begins with a paragraph set to "restart", but the value is always set to the next value after the last occurrence, which defeats the purpose of a restart!

Restarting in a multilevel list is determined by the numbering levels (for example, you can have level 2 numbering be restarted by level 1). If numbering levels are attached to paragraph styles, then in practice a style is restarting another style.

Note that the level/style that restarts the list doesn't have to be numbered itself, but it must be part of the multilevel list.

I'm trying to accomplish that same as kDeborah. Now taking a look at using the Multi-Level List, which I am somewhat familiar with thanks to ShaunaKelley's very helpful page.  I don't actually need a multi level list. I just need a way for the numbers to restart at one after a 'trigger'. I was hoping that the trigger could be set up in the Modify Multi-Level List dialog box by the 'Restart list after' option, and that I could supply a range of paragraph styles there (Header 1, Header 2, etc.).  

That way, I could use a single paragraph style (set up with the above) for all numbered lists in the user guide, and whenever the numbered list hits a particilar type of subsequent paragraph style, it will reset to 1. I am pretty sure I have experienced this functionality in other word processing software.

Unfortunately 'Restart list after' is greyed out at the Level 1 setting, where I need it. I don't need and sublevels. And it looks like even if it was available, it would only allow me to select one style.  In this document, a numbered list of instructions could be followed by Heading 1, Heading 2, or lower heading, depending on where in the document it is located.

I am interested in hearing the creative thoughts of others. I'm using Word 2010. Maybe a newer version will get me what I need?