BULLETPROOF PARAGRAPH NUMBERING - LawTech Partners · and the paragraph positioned. In this example, I’m indenting the first line of the numbered paragraph 0.5″ (Aligned at set

© 2017 Savadra Information Solutions, Inc.

BULLETPROOF

PARAGRAPH

NUMBERING How to create custom

paragraph numbering schemes that do what you

want them to do, and how

to save them for future use


CONTENTS How to Use This Guide ........................................... 1

What Are Your Goals? ............................................ 1

Just plain paragraph numbers, please. .................. 1

Articles/Sections/other text within your numbers, but

no Table of Contents based on them. .................... 2

Numbering within Headings included in your Table of

Contents and Navigation Pane. ............................. 3

Lead-In Numbering included in your Table of

Contents and Navigation Pane. ............................. 3

Increasing Complexity = More Flexibility .................. 4

Example 1: Plain Paragraph Numbers .................... 6

Promoting/Demoting Paragraphs ...................... 10

Example 2: Articles/Sections/Etc. with Numbering

(But No TOC) ................................................... 12

Example 3: Articles/Sections/Etc. as Headings That

Will Appear in a Table of Contents ....................... 19

Example 4: Lead-In Numbered Text with Style

Separators ....................................................... 24

Formatting the Numbering ............................... 26

Formatting the Rest of the Heading ................... 34

Using the New List Style .................................. 37

Using the Style Separator ................................ 38

Adding a New Paragraph, Using the Style Separator

and Updating Your Table of Contents ................. 39


Bonus Tip: Different Formatting for Numbered

Headings in the Document versus in TOC or Cross-

References .................................................... 40

Get More Word Formatting Tips .............................. 42

VIDEOS INCLUDED IN THIS GUIDE: Video 1: Multilevel Paragraph Numbering, Example #2

(https://goo.gl/wMFuab) ....................................... 18

Video 2: How to Restart a List and Change the

Numbering Level (https://goo.gl/s3LfWf) ................. 23

Video 3: How to Modify the Heading Style for an

Associated Numbering Level (https://goo.gl/h15bpd) 24

Video 4: How to Add the Style Separator Button to your

Ribbon or QAT (https://goo.gl/MN42IJ) ................... 39

Video 5: Adding a New Paragraph, Using the Style

Separator & Updating TOC (https://goo.gl/vlHzIq) .... 40

BULLETPROOF PARAGRAPH NUMBERING PAGE 1


HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE See that Table of Contents on the second page?

It's got clickable links that will take you directly to

each tip in this guide.

And because text and screen shots can't always

explain computer stuff adequately, some of the

tips have video demos, too. Just click on the Play

button when you see it in selected tips:

If you're viewing this guide in paper form, you can

simply open your browser of choice and go to the

goo.gl shortlink URL indicated in the caption to

each video screenshot.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? It's a subject I get a lot of email about: "I can't

get my paragraph numbering to behave!" But

beyond that cry, there's a lot of variety in the

specific problems Word users want to solve:

JUST PLAIN PARAGRAPH NUMBERS, PLEASE.

All you want to do is number your paragraphs

sequentially: 1, 2, 3 …



Good news! If that's all you want, that's relatively

easy. Just go to "Example 1: Plain Paragraph

Numbers" below, and I'll show you a quick-and-

dirty method for creating a new multilevel list

(even if you only use the first level) and saving it

to your List Library.

ARTICLES/SECTIONS/OTHER TEXT WITHIN

YOUR NUMBERS, BUT NO TABLE OF CONTENTS

BASED ON THEM.

You want to have text embedded in your

automatic numbering scheme, but they're not

going to be headings. In other words, you want

something like this:

That's totally doable! I'll show you how to fix up

your numbering scheme so it types "Article" (or

whatever else always precedes or follows your

numbering) for you.



NUMBERING WITHIN HEADINGS INCLUDED IN

YOUR TABLE OF CONTENTS AND NAVIGATION

PANE.

Your document includes headings that you want to

use as the basis for an automatically-updating

Table of Contents. That way, if you move, insert,

or delete paragraphs in your document, your

Table of Contents automatically changes right

along with it.

Just as an example, you want Articles to be at

Level 1 and Sections to be at Level 2, with the

first part of the Section number to correspond to

the immediately-preceding Article and the second

part of the Section number to start over at ".01"

when it follows a new Article.

Like this:

LEAD-IN NUMBERING INCLUDED IN YOUR

TABLE OF CONTENTS AND NAVIGATION PANE.

This sort of thing is very common in contracts and

other long documents:



What's different between this example and the

previous one? Notice how the Table of Contents

(TOC) entries for the Sections only include the

number and name of the Section and leave off the

following text. A three-keystroke combination

inserts something called a Style Separator, which

enables Word to recognize "Section 1.02 Property"

as a heading/outline level but designate the rest

of the text as "normal" and therefore not to be

included in the TOC.

INCREASING COMPLEXITY = MORE

FLEXIBILITY It's a sometimes frustrating reality of dealing with

anything to do with computers: making life easier

for yourself in the long run involves doing a bit of

upfront work. You'll notice that the above

examples are in order from easy to complex. If

your numbering requirements are straightforward,

you don't have to do as much upfront setup; if

your requirements are a little more complicated,



then you'll have to do a bit more finagling in the

various dialog boxes to get the desired result.

The good news is, once you've done it (and, more

importantly, understand what you've done), you

don't have to re-do it for every document! You can

save your favorite numbering scheme(s) to use in

any future document and even copy them into

existing documents you're updating.



EXAMPLE 1: PLAIN PARAGRAPH NUMBERS

Let's say all you really want to do is to number

paragraphs 1, 2, 3, a, b, c, like so:

That's easy! First, on the Home tab, click the

drop-down in the Paragraph section next to the

Multilevel List button:

"But I'm only going to use one level," you say.

Even if you're only going to number 1, 2, 3, etc., I

recommend you define a multilevel list. You don't

have to define all 9 levels (the maximum you're

allowed). You can just define the ones you'll use.



That will give you a dialog box that looks like this:

Be sure to click on More to get this:

Looks pretty complicated, right? Let me walk you

through it.



1. I start off by unlinking level numbers from

Styles in the Link level to style drop-down.

In this particular example, we’re not doing

headings or anything like that, so having



each level linked to a Style would just muck

things up.

2. Now that I’m on Level 1 (which is where this

dialog box will start), I choose the

Numbering style for this level and add a

period after the “1”. If Legal style

numbering is checked, I uncheck it.

(Obviously, if that’s the kind of numbering

you want (1.1, etc.), leave that checked.)

3. Next, I tell Word how I want the numbers

and the paragraph positioned. In this

example, I’m indenting the first line of the

numbered paragraph 0.5″ (Aligned at set at

0.5″) and wrapping the text back to the left

margin (Text indent at set to 0″). To start

each paragraph’s text at the next tab stop, I

set Follow number with to Tab character.

4. To avoid having to do this entire positioning

exercise down all nine levels, I click Set for

All Levels, which simply increments the

Aligned at and Text indent at settings 0.5″

for each subsequent level (see “C” below).

“A” below corresponds to Aligned at, and “B”

below corresponds to Text indent at.



5. Once I choose Level 2 (by clicking the "2" in

Click level to modify), you notice that

Restart list after is now enabled. Obviously,

after paragraph 2, I want Level 2 to re-start

at “a”, so I check that box and have it restart

after the previous level. I repeat this step for

levels 3-9 (or however many levels I will

need).

Once everything is set the way I want, I click OK.

What I'll have at the end is this:

PROMOTING/DEMOTING PARAGRAPHS

Pressing Enter after each paragraph should (in

most instances) give you another paragraph with

an automatic number. But say you want to start

an "(a)" under the "1." you just created?

If you want to change the numbering level of a

paragraph, there are three ways you can promote

that paragraph to the next level (or demote it to a

previous level):

• Use the Increase Indent (promote) or

Decrease Indent (demote) buttons on the

Home tab (my preferred method),



• Click the Multilevel list drop-down and

choose Change list level,

• Use the Tab or Shift-Tab method to

promote or demote, respectively.

That last method requires that you have a

particular AutoCorrect setting enabled. Go to

the File tab, click Options, choose Proofing

along the left-hand side, click the AutoCorrect

Options button, and make sure the box

highlighted in yellow in the next illustration is

checked on the AutoFormat As You Type tab:



EXAMPLE 2: ARTICLES/SECTIONS/ETC. WITH

NUMBERING (BUT NO TOC)

Next up is the numbering scheme that embeds

some text like "Article" or "Section" into the

numbering scheme but doesn't require those

headings to be eventually included in an automatic

Table of Contents (TOC):



We'll start at the same place we started for

example #1, on the Home tab at Define New

Multilevel List:

To create the two levels shown in the illustration

above, we’re going to go through the Define new

Multilevel List dialog twice, once for the first

level (Articles) and again for the second level

(Sections):





I’m just going through two levels in this

illustration for the sake of simplicity, just so I can

show you what’s different between the highest

level (Articles) versus the lower levels (Sections

and on down). Here’s the breakdown of what I’ve

done, step by step:

1. First, I make sure I’ve chosen the first level

of the multilevel list by clicking 1 just

underneath Click level to modify.

2. To tell Word what type of numbering I want

to use (1 versus I, etc.), I use the drop-down

under Number style for this level.

3. Once I’ve chosen a number style, I see that

number embedded in the Enter formatting

for number field (it looks a bit greyed-out to

signify that it’s a field and not a literal

number). I can then click my cursor into the

beginning of the Enter formatting for

number field and type “ARTICLE”. Once I’ve

done that, I notice that change reflected in

the preview pane above.

4. Because I’m using inline numbering rather

than headings, I want to be sure that the

numbering scheme is not connected to a

Style, so I choose [no style] in the Link

level to style drop-down.

5. Usually, Number alignment defaults

to left; I double-check that here. You may

run into situations in which you want the



number to align differently (usually with long

legal-style numbering like “1.02.03.”); if

that’s a common situation for you, let me

know in the Comments below so I can

cover that in a future post.

6. Aligned at is different from Number

alignment. Number alignment is where the

number itself is aligned relative to the tab

stop where the trailing period, etc., would be.

Aligned at sets where the beginning of the

numbered paragraph is relative to the left

margin. In this example, I want “ARTICLE” to

start right at the left-hand margin, so I

set Aligned at to 0.

7. Next, I’m going to set the Text indent

at to 0″ as well. This ensures that the

second and subsequent lines of each Article

wraps all the way to the left-hand margin.

8. Follow number with determines what will

create the space between your automatic

number and the following text. You can

choose Space, Tab character, or Nothing.

Here, I chose Space because Roman

numerals can get quite long, and inserting a

tab afterward could create some awkwardly

inconsistent spacing.

9. Now that I’m completed all of the setup for

ARTICLES (level 1 of my multilevel list), I’ll

move on to the SECTIONS portion (level 2)

by clicking the 2 under Click level to



modify. Notice how the preview pane to the

right changes to show the indentation of the

second level.

10. Again, I choose a number style from

the Number style for this level drop-down.

A greyed-out field with the number “01”

appears in Enter formatting for

number. The next four steps are critical to

creating the “Section 1.01” result I’m after.

11. Because I want to include the number of the

level from the preceding Article (in other

words, I want each Section for Article I to

include “1” as the number just after “Section”

and preceding the period), I first make sure

my cursor is just before the “01” I previously

embedded, then use the Include level

number from drop-down to instruct Word to

include the number from Level 1.

12. Level 1 is configured as a Roman numeral, so

that’s what Word puts here … for now. (Hang

in there with me through Step #14.) I then

type a period to separate “I” from “01”, then

place my cursor before all the numbers to

type “Section”.

13. I want to make sure that the first Section

under Article II starts with “Section 2.01” and

doesn’t continue the second-level numbering

from Article I, so I check the box next

to Restart list after and choose the

previous level (in this case, Level 1).



14. Here’s what changes “I” to “1” after

“Section”: check the box next to Legal style

numbering. Now, you see “1.01″ after

“Section”, not “I.01″. Notice how Number

style for this level is suddenly disabled.

That’s why I waited until now to check this

box.

15. Again, I choose Space as the Follow

number with character, for pretty much the

same reasons as in Step # 7.

Once you click OK, you’ll see that Article I pops

up. Type some text in there and hit Enter. You’ll

see Article II.

If you want to start a Section (or a lower level),

review "Promoting/Demoting Paragraphs" on page

10.

Click the video image below for a short (8:43)

online video showing steps 1-15 above:

Video 1: Multilevel Paragraph Numbering, Example #2

(https://goo.gl/wMFuab)

https://logvideo.s3.amazonaws.com/Multilevel-paranum-example-2.mp4



EXAMPLE 3: ARTICLES/SECTIONS/ETC. AS

HEADINGS THAT WILL APPEAR IN A TABLE OF

CONTENTS

This is like the previous example, but look at the

difference between this:

… and this:

Some of the differences will be obvious; some,

not. In the first example, every paragraph is

numbered. In the second example, only the

headings are numbered, while the related

paragraphs underneath are not.

What’s not apparent from casual observation is

that the second example actually uses the

Heading Styles to create the numbered text. If



you’ve been following along throughout this guide,

you’ll remember that I’ve very carefully avoided

linking any of those numbering levels with a

particular Style. In this example, the numbering

will be explicitly linked to Heading Styles to create

an outline. That’s what’s going to enable a lot of

the benefits noted above.

As with all these multilevel numbering schemes,

we start in the same place: on the Hometab, by

clicking on the drop-down next to Multilevel

Numbering which will take us back to Multilevel

Numbering dialog box:

Now, obviously, the settings shown above are

going to have to change to get this result:



What we’ll do differently with the first and second

levels (“ARTICLE #” and “Section #.##”) is link

them to Heading Styles in the Define new

Multilevel List dialog box:



Let me point out a few things that are different

here:

1. I’ve linked Articles with Heading 1 and

Sections with Heading 2 (see red box above).

2. I’ve made sure in Level 2 (“Sections”) to

check the box next to Restart list after and

chose Level 1 so that the Sections will re-

start at “.01” whenever there’s a new Article

level (see blue box above).

3. I’ve positioned the Number alignment, Text

indent at and Aligned at all at 0″. If I want to

center “Article” between the margins (as a lot

of people do), I’m going to control that within

the Heading Style (more on that later) (see

green box above).

4. I’ve set Follow number with to Space. If you

know that your numbering isn’t going to

cause horizontal spacing issues, you can set

yours to Tab character.

Linking a numbering level with a Heading Style

(which, in turn, is associated with an Outline level)

is what enables you to pull in those headings to

create an automatic Table of Contents that looks

something like this:



Linking those first two levels with Heading Styles

also effectively “turns off” the feature that

automatically inserts a new numbered paragraph

whenever I press Enter. On the plus side, that

enables me to insert unnumbered paragraphs

within the text easily. Unfortunately, it also makes

the task of starting the numbering series up again

a bit less obvious.

To make this a bit easier to understand, I've

create a quick video (48 seconds!) demonstrating

three methods for restarting your numbered list:

Video 2: How to Restart a List and Change the Numbering Level

(https://goo.gl/s3LfWf)

https://logvideo.s3.amazonaws.com/restart-list-and-change-level.mp4



Linking the list levels to Headings also brings up a

question about how you control paragraph settings

like justification, line spacing and spacing between

paragraphs. The bad news is that you can’t do

that within the Define new Multilevel list dialog

box. The good news is that you can control these

settings through the associated Style:

Video 3: How to Modify the Heading Style for an Associated

Numbering Level (https://goo.gl/h15bpd)

EXAMPLE 4: LEAD-IN NUMBERED TEXT WITH

STYLE SEPARATORS

Suppose you want your numbers and their

associated text to (a) appear on the same line as

the remainder of the paragraph and (b) have

some very specific formatting but (c) also appear

(alone) within the Table of Contents with certain

formatting and (d) be referenced within other

paragraphs with formatting that matches the

surrounding paragraph?

Confused?

https://logvideo.s3.amazonaws.com/modify-heading-1-style-for-level-1-numbering.mp4



Yes, it's a very particular set of requirements, but

basically, it looks something like this:

Notice how the Section headers are bold and in all

caps (and only the "Section #" part is underlined),

but the Table of Contents pulls in "normal"

formatting for those headings. And while you can't

really see it from the above illustration, if you

cross-referenced those Section numbers

elsewhere in your document, you'd see "normal"

formatting there, too.

Neat trick, huh?

Pulling off distinct formatting of numbering, the

lead-in headings, and the rest of the paragraph

requires mastery of two techniques: Style

Separators and Numbering versus Heading

formatting.



Here's a breakdown of the structure:

Obviously, there's a lot going on here. So let's

move from left to right and deal with formatting

the numbering first.

FORMATTING THE NUMBERING

You may have noticed a button marked Font next

to the Enter formatting for number field in the

Define new Multilevel List dialog box:

Clicking on that button allows you to customize

the font for anything that appears in that Enter



formatting for number field, including any text

that you’ve inserted.

So, for example, you could specify that the

numbered heading appear in all caps, bold and

underline, regardless of how you actually type it

into the Enter formatting for number field.

That’s what enables you to present the heading

one way within the paragraph and a different way

(without the special formatting) in a Table of

Contents or a cross-reference elsewhere in the

text.



Let me step you through how I created a List Style

using one reader’s requirements as an example. I

started by clicking Define New List Style in

the Multilevel List menu on the Home tab:

I named my new List Style “Heather” (in honor of

the reader whose requirements I'm basing this

example on) and made sure I selected New



documents based on this template so this List

Style would be saved to my template.

Then I began to create the numbering scheme:





1. Starting with the first level of numbering, I

entered “Article” into Enter formatting for

number …

2. … and inserted Roman numerals using

the Number style for this level drop-down.

3. I linked this numbering level to my Heading 1

Style (although I might have been better

off defining a unique Style for this numbering

scheme and leaving the pre-defined Headings

alone).

4. I set Follow number with to Nothing,

because Heather’s boss doesn’t want the

trailing period underlined.

5. I set Aligned at to 0″ so that “Article” will be

flush with the left margin. Then I clicked

the Font button next to Enter formatting

for number to go to the Font dialog box.

6. I set the font to bold, …

7. … underlined, and …

8. … all caps, then clicked OK.



So “Articles” is defined like this:

I moved on to the next level of numbering

(“Sections”) and set it up like this:

As you can see, I made sure to set Link level to

style to Heading 2 (again, might have been better



to have made a custom Style here, too), restart

each Section’s numbering after a new Article

(rimmed in red above), and used Legal style

numbering to drive the “1.01” part of the

number (see Video 1: Multilevel Paragraph

Numbering, Example #2 (https://goo.gl/wMFuab)

for a demonstration).

Then I clicked on the Font button and made many

of the same changes I did for “Articles”:



So my second-level numbering, “Section”, looks

like this:

Now, I’ve only demonstrated two levels here, but

you could go through all nine levels here if you

choose, associating them with a different Style

each time.

FORMATTING THE REST OF THE HEADING

That takes care of formatting the numbering. But

what about the variable text (like “Parties”) that

comes after the numbering?

That requires adjusting the associated Styles.

Remember that “Articles” is associated with

Heading 1 and “Section” is associated with

Heading 2. So for each of these, I find those



Styles in that section of the Home tab, right-click,

and choose Modify to make those adjustments:



For example, I chose Paragraph under Format in

the Modify Style dialog box and adjusted the

before-and-after spacing, but I could have just as

easily chosen Font and chosen some other

settings (like bold and all-caps). The point is,

modifying the Heading Styles is what controls how

the text after the numbering is displayed in the

document.



USING THE NEW LIST STYLE

Now, to use my new numbering scheme, I just go

back to Multilevel List and choose it:

CHANGING THE NUMBERING LEVEL

If I need to change the numbering level of a

paragraph (for example, a paragraph is inserted

as an “Article” and I want to change it to a

“Section”), I click on Change List Level:



USING THE STYLE SEPARATOR

Now you have the automatic number (“Section

1.01”) and the remainder of the heading

(“Parties”). But how do you type in the remainder

of the paragraph so that it doesn’t end up in the

Table of Contents?

Doing that requires separating the heading (the

part you do want to see in the Table of Contents)

from the remainder of the paragraph with

something called a Style Separator. Style

Separators allow you to have more than one

paragraph (or combination character/paragraph

a.k.a. “linked”) Style within a single paragraph.

Problem is, Microsoft Word hides this feature from

view. It’s nowhere on the Ribbon. There’s a

shortcut key, CTRL-ALT-Enter, but how would you

know that?

The good news is, starting with Word version

2010, you can modify the Ribbon and/or Quick

Access Toolbar to add commands like Style

Separator and get them where you can see them.



Here’s a quick video demonstrating how:

Video 4: How to Add the Style Separator Button to your Ribbon

or QAT (https://goo.gl/MN42IJ)

ADDING A NEW PARAGRAPH, USING THE STYLE

SEPARATOR AND UPDATING YOUR TABLE OF

CONTENTS

Once you've defined each numbering level and its

associated heading styles, you're ready to use

your new List Style!

Now that you've made your own custom List Style

with all these features built in, you can re-use it

whenever you need it. Isn't that a relief?

The following are the steps you'll perform in each

document moving forward:

• Add a new paragraph

• Choose the paragraph outline level

• Use the Style Separator to delineate the

lead-in text from the rest of the paragraph

Here’s a quick 45-second video showing you the

steps for adding a new numbered paragraph in

your document using your new numbering scheme

https://goo.gl/MN42IJ



and inserting a Style Separator to type the

remainder of the paragraph.

Video 5: Adding a New Paragraph, Using the Style Separator &

Updating TOC (https://goo.gl/vlHzIq)

BONUS TIP: DIFFERENT FORMATTING FOR

NUMBERED HEADINGS IN THE DOCUMENT VERSUS IN

TOC OR CROSS-REFERENCES

One more tip: You may have noticed in this

example that numbered headings are in ALL CAPS

and bold, while the Table of Contents entries are

in Initial Caps and not bolded. How'd that happen?

I defined both the numbering and the lead-in font

formatting as ALL CAPS and bold, but when I

physically typed my heading text in, I used Initial

Caps. The List Style takes care of re-formatting

the text as ALL CAPS and bold, but when other

fields like Table of Contents or Cross-References1,

they'll pick it up the way you typed them in (in

1 If you were to reference something from Section 1.02 further down

in the document, you might insert "see Section 1.02" by embedding a

cross-reference field that points back to Section 1.02. You can find

that feature on the References or Insert tabs.

https://goo.gl/vlHzIq



this example, in Initial Caps without boldfacing).

It's something to keep in mind as you're defining

your new List Style and using it in your document.



GET MORE WORD FORMATTING TIPS Thanks for downloading my Bulletproof Paragraph

Numbering guide! Be sure to check your email

inbox for more of my popular Microsoft Office tips

and tricks.

If you like to pass these tips along to a colleague,

you're free to do so, as long as you pass along the

document in its entirety.

If you'd like to get more tips and tricks from Legal

Office Guru, here's where I hang out on social

media:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahsavadra

https://plus.google.com/+DeborahSavadra

http://www.twitter.com/legalofficeguru

Thanks for reading,

Deborah @ Legal Office Guru

http://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahsavadra

https://plus.google.com/+DeborahSavadra

http://www.twitter.com/legalofficeguru

Documents

BULLETPROOF PARAGRAPH NUMBERING - LawTech Partners · and the paragraph positioned. In this example, I’m indenting the first line of the numbered paragraph 0.5″ (Aligned at set