Inconsistent ability to modify Outline Level of custom Headings

Anonymous
2017-02-27T18:09:55+00:00

I'm using Word for Mac 15.31 in MacOS Sierra 10.12.3, but this issue appears to be cross-platform, since a Word-for-PC user has experienced it as well (see end of this post):

Here's what should be the procedure for modifying the Outline Level of a custom Heading:

  1. In the Styles Pane, click on the down-triangle next to the Heading whose Outline Level you want to adjust.
  2. Then select:  Modify Style –>  Format –> Paragraph –> Indents and Spacing –> Outline Level.

However, usually the Outline Levels are grayed-out and thus not changeable (for both built-in Headings and custom Headings).  The only procedure I've uncovered that consistently allows you to change the Outline Level for a custom Heading (this doesn't work for built-in Headings) is the following workaround.  Suppose you want to change the Outline Level of "Custom Heading 1":

  1. Highlight an existing Heading, whose style is "Custom Heading 1",  in the document.
  2. Go into the document's Paragraph dialog (as opposed to the Heading's Paragaph dialog), and change the Heading's Outline Level there.  
  3. Go back to the Styles Pane, click on the reverse triangle for Custom Heading 1, and then select  "Update to Match Selection".  

This roundabout method is obviously unnecessarily complicated and laborious — there's no good reason you shouldn't be able to do this directly, in the Styles Pane, with Modify Style –>  Format –> Paragraph –> Indents and Spacing –> Outline Level.  After all, why does Word offer "Outline Level" as an option under Modify Style, only to leave that option (usually) disabled?  

[Note that all my custom Headings were created based on styles of built-in Headings.]

Further, as I mentioned above, when it comes to built-in Headings, even this procedure doesn't work.

But here's the additional puzzle:  One's inability to directly modify the Outline Level of custom Headings (using Modify Style) is not consistent.  For instance, suppose you click some body text, and then change that text to a custom Heading style.  Then, usually, if you try  Modify Style –>  Format –> Paragraph –> Indents and Spacing –> Outline Level, you'll find that this custom Heading's Outline Level is no longer grayed out!  [I.e., you just have to first change some text to that Heading, and then you can internally modify the Heading's Outline Level; the problem is if the text already is in that Heading style, in which case Outline Level will typically be grayed-out.] As a further oddity, if that custom Heading was based on a built-in Heading, if you go to the corresponding built-in Heading, you'll usually see its Outline Level is no longer grayed out either!  But if you do some other stuff in the document, and then return to check either the custom Heading or the built-in Heading, you will see that their Outline Level pull-downs have reverted to a grayed-out status.

An inconsistent ability to modify the Outline Levels of Headings has also been observed by Word MVP Doug Robbins, who is using Word for PC (indicating this issue is cross-platform).  He found that, for built-in Headings, sometimes Outline Level is grayed out, and sometimes it's not. Here's an excerpt from one of Doug Robbin's posts at https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice\_word-mso\_mac/three-issues-with-navigation-pane/9933f8eb-d25b-4c42-a743-623815949d60 :

For the Built-in Heading # styles, it is not possible to modify the level. (checking again, I find that it is possible.  I do not know why the Outline level: drop down was disabled when I took the screen shot.)

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Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2017-03-02T07:39:03+00:00

Modify Heading 3 first, then before doing anything else, access the Modify Style dialog for Heading 3 and change the Style Based on from "Heading 2"

To (no style) - it's at the top of the list.

If you do not do that, when you subsequently modify the Heading 2 style, Heading 3 will inherit the modification because it is based on Heading 2

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  1. Stefan Blom 353.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-02-28T21:14:13+00:00

    Fair enough, if messing with a style is the same as customizing it, then I see the contradiction. But that isn't a reasonable interpretation. We are supposed to edit styles so that they suit our needs.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-02-28T21:05:50+00:00

    Doug and Charles can certainly speak for themselves, but I see no contradiction in the passage you cited: "I would strongly recommend against attempting to change the heading levels of the built-in styles, even if it is possible. Instead, use the correct level and modify its appearance to suit."

    My apologies, what I should have said is that the advice I was getting from Charles (to modify the appearance of the built-in Headings, while leaving their Outline Levels alone) appears to contradict the advice I was getting from Doug, which is to not mess with the Heading Styles period.

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  3. Stefan Blom 353.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-02-28T20:57:02+00:00

    Doug and Charles can certainly speak for themselves, but I see no contradiction in the passage you cited: "I would strongly recommend against attempting to change the heading levels of the built-in styles, even if it is possible. Instead, use the correct level and modify its appearance to suit."

    Those two sentences state that you can change everything, except for the outline level.

    In fact, you should change the font settings (font name, size, etc.) and/or the paragraph settings (line spacing, spacing before/after, indentation, etc.) to suit the needs of your document.

    If the appearance in the Navigation pane (Document Map) is important, then you will have to use custom styles whose outline levels can be modified, but you lose some of the "magic" properties that only the built-in headings have (see http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/usebuiltinheadingstyles.html).

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-02-28T19:29:58+00:00

    I'm using Word for Mac 15.31 with MacOS Sierra 10.12.3.

    I'm using Word's "Write a Journal Template", except that I'm using the Title style for my chapter (Level 1) Headings, Heading 1's appearance for my Level 2 Heading, and so on (it looks great).  I really like the styles of the Headings in this template, so I wanted to use those, rather than create ones from scratch.  I accomplished this by creating custom Headings whose appearance is based on the style of the built-in Headings.  I.e., Here's what I have.

    [Note: "OL" = Outline Level; and I'm using "style" to mean all parts of the Heading's style except for the OL.]

    OL1:  Title, OL set to 1

    OL2: custom Heading whose style is that of built-in Heading 1

    OL3: custom Heading whose style is that of built-in Heading 2

    OL4: custom Heading whose style is that of built-in Heading 3

    OL5: custom Heading whose style is that of built-in Heading 4

    In this way, both my TOC Heading Levels, and the Heading Levels in the Document Map (in the Navigation Pane) match. However, I've been advised that, for various reasons, it's superior to have your document's structure be based on the built-in Headings rather than custom Headings (see http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/usebuiltinheadingstyles.html). This leaves me with just two options:

    1. Change the OL's of the built-in Headings.
    2. Change the style of the built-in Headings (so that, e.g., Heading 1 now looks like my chapter Title, Heading 2 now looks like Heading 1, etc.).

    However, I've  been further advised not to change the OL's of the built-in Headings (that this could lead to unstable behavior).    Thus, if I want my document's structure to be based on built-in Headings rather than custom Headings, that leaves me with only option #2.  I tried doing that, but couldn't get it to work.  I.e., I tried doing this:

    OL1: style of (Title) ==> built-in Heading 1

    OL2: style of (built-in Heading 1) ==> built-in Heading 2

    OL3: style of (built-in Heading 2) ==> built-in Heading 3

    OL4: style of (built-in Heading 3) ==> built-in Heading 4

    OL5: style of (built-in Heading 4) ==> built-in Heading 5

    In so doing, the Title's style would now be at OL1, built-in Heading 1's style would be at OL2, etc.

    To start, I tried applying (hereafter anytime I write "Heading #" I mean "built-in Heading #"):

    style of (Heading 4) ==> Heading 5.   I did this by selecting the text that was formatted in Heading 4 style, and then (in the Styles Pane) clicked on the reverse triangle next to Heading 5 and selected

    That did indeed change Heading 5's style to that of the original Heading 4.  

    But when I tried to go up by one level, I ran into a problem.  When I tried applying: 

    style of (Heading 3) ==> Heading 4, not only did Heading 4 acquire Heading 3's style, but Heading 5 did as well (not only in the Style Pane, but in the text)!  It was then impossible to fix this by going back to Heading 5 and re-applying the Heading 4 style, because that style was now gone: both the Heading 4 selection in the Style Pane, and the text to which I'd applied the Heading 4 style, were now Heading 3 style!  I.e., they're somehow linked together in a way that prevents this remapping.   I also tried it in the reverse direction, starting with Title, and ran into the same problem when I tried applying the style of Heading 1 to Heading 2.

    Finally, I also tried the following, which didn't work either (I encountered the same problems described above):

    style of (Title) ==> built-in Heading 1

    style of (custom Heading 1) ==> built-in Heading 2

    style of (custom Heading 2) ==> built-in Heading 3

    style of (custom Heading 3) ==> built-in Heading 4

    style of (custom Heading 4) ==> built-in Heading 5

    So if you have a solution to this, that would be great. All of these Heading styles are quite complex (especially the Title's), so it's not practical to try to laboriously reproduce them using the Modify Style pane.  That's why I chose to create custom Headings.  These I could modify to match the style of an existing Heading with just one click (i.e., "Update to Match Selection").

    I know some of you will want to suggest that I instead just modify the TOC levels, but this isn't sufficient for my purposes.  Indeed, a few weeks ago, after my initial attempt to remap the appearance of the built-in Headings failed, I did adjust the TOC levels.  The problem is this works great for the TOC, but leaves me without a Document Map that is properly indented (because the Document Map follows the Outline Level, rather than the TOC Level).  Without the proper indentations, the Document Map is hard to navigate.  I thus had to accomplish this by creating custom Headings, identical in appearance to the built-in Headings, but whose Outline Levels I could adjust.  Now my Document Map corresponds to my TOC.  But, for the reasons given in the above link, it would be better if I could do this with the built-in Headings rather than custom Headings.

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