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Stuart J Stuple is a program manager on the Microsoft Office Word team who focuses on the formatting and editing experience of long or complex documents. His background is in book publishing and education.
If ever there was a misunderstood feature, it has to be the automatic numbering features within Word. Intended to make it easy to create lists that number themselves, people have on more than one occasion described the experience as out-of-control and unpredictable. They often do this over dinner when they find out I own the numbering experience and I'm always interested in hearing specifics. But I believe that the changes that we've made in Word 2007 combined with just a little knowledge mean that you can tame this feature and create the lists of your dreams. (What? You don't dream about numbering and formatting? Hmm. Perhaps I need to get out more.)
In today's post we'll cover improvements we've made to simple numbering in Word 2007, and in future posts we'll chat about our improvements to:
The most noticeable change within numbering in Word 2007 is when it occurs. No more waiting for the end of the paragraph but rather as soon as you type the number and a space, your list begins. If you didn't mean to start a list, then a simple Undo removes the "listness" and returns your numbering to plain text. Most people know that Word will recognize Arabic numbers followed by punctuation, such as 1) or 1., but Word also recognize lettered lists (using lowercase or uppercase) and has several automatic bullet symbols (such as *, >, and -).
With Word 2007, recognized lists now use their own style. In previous versions, numbering or bulleting a paragraph didn't change the style associated with the paragraph. Now, the style becomes "List Paragraph." "So, why do I care?" you might ask. Well, this allows us to have a different amount of space between the entries in the list and the surrounding paragraphs. Separating the list from the paragraph before and after the list and at the same time tightening the space between list entries makes the list stand out a bit more and makes it easier to read.
If you want an unnumbered paragraph in the middle of a list, simply press backspace to remove the number. In Word 2007, the text on the first line will continue to line up with the text of the numbered paragraph. If you want the text to line up with the number position, press another backspace. (Press a third backspace and you should be back at the start of the line.)
One trick that's very useful when you have a list that is numbered with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, and so on) and that contains unnumbered paragraphs is that you can pick the numbering back up by typing the next number in sequence. So if you have paragraphs numbered 1) and 2) and then an unnumbered paragraph, you can rejoin the previous list by starting your next paragraph with 3) followed by a space. If you start a new paragraph with a 1), then you'll start a new list.
Give that a whirl and let us know what you think. More on numbering to come…stay tuned.
- Stuart J Stuple & Jonathan
Comments: (13) Collapse
It would be useful for Word to have a feature called Plane Text which when enabled would turn off all automatic formatting features for a piece of text. Many times I want to enter a piece of code for example and such a feature would be handy. Pasting sample code is especially problematic, so I hope that you have fixed that.
Handy also would have been a feature by which the user could review all the formatting in a piece of text using special tags, such as XML ones, and would be able to modify it. This is because many times Word is characterized as not so advanced as other writing systems, simply because the user seems not to have total control over the formatting of his documents and everything should be done through the UI.
ANother feature I'd love to see is automatic reverse numbering.. Sometimes i need to number in reverse.. 10. 9. 8. etc.. Automatic numbering never seems to pick that up.
I would love to see some tips and tricks as to how to format the numbering the way *I* want them numbered. For instance, our Law Firm has a .5" rule. Everything starts at the .5" mark. For instance the 1. is at the .5" while the text starts at the 1" mark and indents back to the .5" mark. I've tried setting that up, but can't get that to carry forward from one document to the next.
I'm combining a few responses together here, which I hope is not confusing. All of these are interesting feature requests and ones that we will definitely consider as we look at future versions. I've tried to provide some information about possible work-arounds with the current product. Nektar--when pasting, you might try using the Keep Text Only option on the Paste OOUI (the control that appears at the edge of the content you pasted). That should keep Word from merging the formatting. You might also check out the Styles Inspector (from the Style Pane) and the Reveal Formatting pane to address your goals of being able to see the exact formatting on your text. Andrew--Reverse numbering is something that can be done with SEQ fields I believe. As you've observed, while Automatic numbering offers a variety of formats, all share the characteristic of the next numbered paragraph increasing the value by one. Dawn--The best way to support this is to create a List Style with the fomratting that you want for each level. Then you can apply that list style whenever you start a numbered list. Once the list is started, Word will continue to use that style. Unfortunately, there is not a way to make that your default numbering for new lists. Thanks for the great comments. Stuart
Hi Stuart, Thanks for starting to write about formatting, The topic is really interesting to me. What about the "Show: Formatting in use" command that was available in the
"Styles and Formatting" task pane in Word 2003? It was very useful.
The options that were expressed previously in the dropdown list of the Styles and Formatting Pane can be set using the Options dialog of the Styles pane. We found that what people wanted from this pane was more diverse than what was supported by the original design. I believe you'll get what you are seeking by setting the "Show" option to In Use and enabling the tracking of paragraph and font formatting. -Stuart
Contrary to your post, Numbering does NOT work as it should. It is buggy and inconsistent. I can provide numerous examples. I have spent the last 6 hours formatting documents today with numbering. For inexplicable reasons, numbering presents bugs. Example:
Define your own list level where you are only using Level 1 and 2. Both have no indent.
Level 1 = Heading 1 = 1 HEADING IN CAPS
Leve 2 = Heading 2 = 1.1 Heading Each Word Capitalised
Text indent is supposed to be the same.
Same settings as a document that worked, and one document 'decides' that it will have all Heading 1 as the same number (i.e wont progress and the same for Heading 2 (list level 2)
Basically you get the feeling that you are 'fighting' the program every step of the way. Another example is where you update the Heading and for some reason, the color just changes.
I have been in IT for over 8 years. I can tell you, the numbering is buggy.
Nektar,
Sorry but I beg to differ. I've been attempting to define a set of Heading styles to use numbering as follows:
1. Create a list style "Headings" and associate the various numberings with Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.
2. Repeat for "Appendix Headings" associated with Heading A1, Heading A2 etc. (So my appendix sections are labelled A.1. A.2. etc.)
Having done this, for some reason all the other numbered lists in my document are utterly messed - the indent levels go awry, starting a new list may or may not choose to use heading numbering for no logical reason I can discern.
Seriously, this part of Word has actually degraded since Word 2003, and that's saying something. Numbering has always been one of your weak points, and I don't understand how it could have gone so wrong.
Finally, the only way I can see to edit my existing list style is to open the Style Manager - in the "Numbered list with levels" tool I can add new list styles, but not access my existing ones to change them. Accessing Style Manager is not exactly obvious either.
Personally, I think Word reached its apex at version 6.0, each version since seems to attempt to add new features, but manages to destroy something that at worked to some extent until then. I'd say you need to refocus on simplicity and useability in a big big way.
Hoping this mess gets sorted in future.
Rob
I've given up and, temporarily gone back to Office 2003 - I got driven past the point of frustration when I finally, after over 4 hours messing with numbers got it all looking OK, opened the document later and all the numbering I'd painstakingly set up had turned to bullets and freaking moved halfway across the page.
Not possessed my elbow!
I'm going to download OpenOffice later and see if that fares better at these kind of tasks. This is really the final straw for me - I seem to spend more time struggling with Word than actually preparing documents nowadays.
Here's my question: How do I adjust the spacing between numbered or bulleted lists? I have tried to do so by going to 'line spacing options' but with no luck. What am I doing wrong?
Word 2007 List Paragraph numbering Is possessed.
What I want to do:
(i) I use bullets (single level) and numbered lists (single level) and so am setting up a template for all future documents.
(ii) I have specific needs for numbered lists these are: 1. number alignment right as the numbers can get large {xxxix} and 2. specific indents to align with other paragraph styles especially my heading styles.
(iii) I set up List Paragraph as I require it to be.
(iv) When I apply the List Paragraph Quick Style to selected text it works like a dream – fantastic!
(v) However, whenever I start a number list with the text “(i) “ I get different formatting for my list – not my indents and numbers aligned left – even though the new paragraph style is shown to be List Paragraph which I have just re-defined.
The question: How do I force compliance to my settings???
Paulje (re your headings compliant) I found shaunakelly.com has a very informtaive article on setting up headings - mine now work like a dream
Like several other posters, I strongly disagree that numbering is not complete buggy. I have been trying for an hour to get a new subsection pick up the new section numbering, not the previous section numbering. For example:
Section 3.3
Section 3.3.1
Section 3.3.2
Section 3.4
Section 3.3.3
If i remove the numbering and reinsert it, it sets back to 1. There is no way to get this to work which is beyond ridiculous.
There is nothing more frustrating then trying to assemble a business document on a deadline only to be hamstrung by an application that does not work.
I'm convinced that the developers who can't excel, access, or visio get relegated to the word team - terrible.
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