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I am using Word 2010 with Windows 7.
I have an 82 page document that has headings numbered with a multilevel list. I use a defined styles for each level and have used outline functions to assign levels to each heading. Once the style is set and levels assigned I have used the multilevel list to give each a number. In numerous heading levels I had to set the number using the 'set numbering value'.
Once I completed the entire file I created a .pdf of the file and saved the file. I also restricted the styles to just those used in the document.
When I open the file about half of the numbers are gone.
This has happened twice.
I really need help!
thanks.
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.
The symptom suggests minor document corruption. It's very difficult to determine the underlying cause. But I recommend that you recreate the template and then recreate its numbering.
I assume the best bet would be to completely start from scratch, but that would be mind-bogglingly difficult (1 of the 12 or so templates I have is 24 pages and full of cross-references).
If I recreate the numbering in a new document, then copy and paste, and assign the new multilevel list style, is that likely to take care of it, or will copy/pasting without removing the formatting likely pull the corruption with it? Is there a particular way to reduce the risk of problems?
Yes, recreating the numbering should do it—unless the underlying cause is something else (such as a poorly designed add-in).
Try with one template first, and verify that it works the way you hope for.
If you are applying style sets to the document, note that these do not work reliably with numbered and bulleted styles. Avoid them and modify styles directly in the document instead
I'm having a very similar problem, and your statement here seems to be key. I'd like to confirm that this is indeed a bug. I inherited hundreds of documents that used a template where different styles are unrelated (single-level) lists. I modified the template so that these styles are multi-level. They now restart numbering as desired. When I apply the new template to the existing docs, it destroys the multilevel lists. Am I to understand that there's no way to avoid this (short of rebuilding the multilevel lists in every document)?
Answers to likely questions: Windows 7, Word 2010, yes I cleared Automatically Update Styles, yes the styles have the exact same names.
It hasn't been confirmed by Microsoft (as far as I know), but experience tells me that Quick Style sets are unreliable with numbered and bulleted styles. Multilevel numbering is even more complex, so I'm not surprised that it is breaking when you use style sets.
For assistance with setting up a multilevel list, see http://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html. Save the file as a template; that way, you can easily create new documents with the same numbering scheme.
To transfer the multilevel list to an existing document, create a new document based on your template and then bring in the existing content via the Insert File dialog box.
You can display the Insert File dialog by clicking the arrow on the Object button on the Insert tab and then clicking Text from File (note that the command is misleading, because it doesn't insert only text).