In Word, failure of numbered list under Heading

Question

I am working on a Word document with headings. Under one heading, I would like to create a numbered list. However each numbered item appears as a new Heading, so I end up with a bunch of headings rather than a numbered list. What is going on?

Here are the steps. I'd like to insert a numbered list after the heading named 'Method'. The text after this heading is Normal style.

I choose the numbered list button at the top to create a new numbered item. But it appears as a new heading (#3, no name) instead, even though the style where I inserted the item still appears as Normal on the Style Inspector on the right of the screen.

How can I insert a numbered list after the heading named 'Method'?

Answer 1

Try this.

With your new item listed as Number 3 (like screen shot 2).

1. Highlight (select) it.
2. Click Normal Style (from the Top Style boxes).
3. Now click on the Numbering button, it should now be normal but with a 3.
4. Click increase Indent button (it should become "a" still in normal style).
5. Right Click it.
6. Hightlight Numbering (don't click it)
7. Under Numbering Libray pick 1.2.3.

Answer 2

Word comes with some predefined heading styles, Heading 1-9. Usually, the definition of these styles specifies the style of the following paragraph. This means that, if you are typing in a paragraph with the Heading N style and then hit [enter], the new paragraph will have the specified style.

Additional paragraph and character formatting can be applied to paragraphs that have a heading style applied to them. For example, it's possible to apply the Heading 1 style to a paragraph and then to turn on bullets or numbering. And if the Heading 1 style had been changed so that the same style was applied to the following paragraph, you would get the situation you are describing.

You could look at the Style Inspector to see what formatting directives have been applied to your headings, which are part of the style definition, and which have been applied directly.

This article gives an overview of using styles in Word 2007.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

I used Word 2007's built-in styles, and created the document shown below. I first created the four headings, and applied the Heading 1 style to them. I then inserted a new paragraph -- with Normal style -- and was able to enable numbering, which changed the style to List Paragraph. The Style Insepctor confirms this.

I then modified the Heading 1 style to include automatic numbering. When I turned on numbered list for the subordinate paragraph, Word changed the style of that paragraph from Normal to Heading 1.

I believe this happens because the numberd list functionality tries to keep numbering consistent, and by default, a newly numbered paragraph will join an adjacent numbered list. In the image beow, you can see in the Style Inspector that the new paragraph has changed its style to Heading 1.

Some possible work-arounds:

• Create a new style for your numbered paragraphs. I have confirmed that this works. (see below)
• Turn off the automatic numbering in your heading style and just enter the numbers in the headings manually

I hope that this isn't too late to be of any help. It took me a while to build a system with Word 2007 to play with. For what it's worth, the same behavior affects Word 2010.

Good luck!