No Continue Numbering?

[danika]

If I delete or add a heading at one level the headings immediately below that level usually don't get automatically renumbered. If I add a heading level I can fix the lower levels with Restart Numbering. However, if a delete a level there is no Continue Numbering like there is in MS Word. Also in Word I can usually fix the problem by changing the lower heading level to Default and then back to the correct heading level. I've gotten that to work in Writer sometimes, but not consistently.

[acknak]

Writer is not designed to use numbered paragraphs--as you get when clicking on the toolbar--for headings. Instead, use the built-in heading paragraph styles ("Heading 1", "Heading 2", etc.) and then use Tools > Outline Numbering to configure the numbering applied to the heading levels.

[danika]

Writer is not designed to use numbered paragraphs--as you get when clicking on the toolbar--for headings. Instead, use the built-in heading paragraph styles ("Heading 1", "Heading 2", etc.) and then use Tools > Outline Numbering to configure the numbering applied to the heading levels.

I'm already using Outline Numbering. There is still no Continue Numbering.

[acknak]

Ok, then it seems I don't understand clearly, because you wrote:

If I add a heading level I can fix the lower levels with Restart Numbering.

but "Restart Numbering" is a button on the "Bullets and Numbering" toolbar (i.e., numbered paragraphs), and is not found under Tools > Outline Numbering.

Maybe the simplest way to be clear would be if you can attach (or link to) a sample document that shows the problem. You can use the "Upload Attachment" link (below the message entry area after you click "POST REPLY"). [Forum] How to attach a document here

Edit: Oops. I see that I am the one confused about the "Restart Numbering" button. I honestly never noticed that the Bullets and Numbering toolbar pops up for outline-numbered headings, as well as for lists. Good grief; what a mess.

[danika]

I can't make the document public, but here's a screen shot of the navigator that shows one of the problems. G is a Heading 2 and 1, 1, 2, 2 are all Heading 3's.

[acknak]

There's no need to prove that the numbering isn't working, but no one can make any specific suggestions without clearly understanding what state the document is in. I'd be very surprised if you haven't mixed together outline numbering and paragraph numbering--OOo Writer has a very confusing design in these features, IMO.

If the document is confidential, perhaps you can either obfuscate the content (see the attachment tutorial I linked to above for some suggestions), or make arrangements to email it privately with some assurance of confidentiality.

One way you can perhaps narrow the problem down is to go to Tools > Outline Numbering, and set the Number parameter for all levels to "None". Any header numbering that you see in the document at that point is coming from paragraph numbering and should be removed (use Numbering: ON/OFF). Then you can go back and re-configure the outline numbering for each heading level.

[danika]

You're right, the design is confusing. However, from your suggestion about setting the Heading levels to no numbering, I was able to figure out what's going on. This document was brought over from Word, and all of the Heading styles appear to have been assigned a paragraph numbering style of WW8Num2, whatever that is. In order to get the Heading levels to number properly, I have to select each individual Heading paragraph, set the paragraph number style to None, and the reapply the Heading level.

There are about 250 Heading levels in this document which is more than I'm going to take time to correct individually. Is there any way to select all of these Heading levels and then change the paragraph numbering style to None without changing the Heading style?

[acknak]

Ugh. Documents imported from Word are always a mess.

For documents I'm going to be maintaining in OOo, I've taken to importing them as plain text--pitching all the formatting--and reformatting from scratch. This avoids all the weirdness left over from the import and makes the maintenance much easier and more consistent. It does take some extra time, but I'd rather invest the time doing my own formatting rather than debugging problems like this. E.g. you can apply the standard "Heading N" styles that OOo normally uses, instead of wrestling with the oddball styles created to match Word's behavior.

Anyway, you can search for paragraphs with particular styles, select them all, and change the setting, but if the headings use the styles consistently, all you have to do is modify the style definitions.

[CannedMan]

I apologise for reopening a decade-old thread, but I am having similar issues, and after creating a clean document cannot seem to fix the issue. I have no numbering in the headings and paragraph styles, only outline numbering (as far as I can tell). Still the numbering will not work as intended. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

[Hagar Delest]

Very strange.
If I apply another paragraph style on the "a. Dette er en brødtekst" string then the chapter numbering is fixed. Reapplying the Text Body style (same as the initial setting), then the numbering is kept correct.
I've checked both content.xml and styles.xml before/after and there is absolutely no difference.

[CannedMan]

So when you open the document, the numbering continues below outline number level 2? You get:

• Kapittel I
  
  • § 1
  • § 2
  • § 3
• Kapittel II
  
  • § 4
  • § 5

Did I understand you correctly?

[Hagar Delest]

No, when I open your file, I see Kapittel I numbered (wrongly) as II, and II as III.
But if I change the style of the paragraph before the Kapittel I, then the chapter numbering is correct. And then if I reapply the style, the numbering does not change (this is fine).
So there is something fixed by the paragraph style change but I don't know what.

[CannedMan]

A different weird thing is going on as well, now (after having edited a copy of the shared document thoroughly): Page 1 starts as page 5; that is, it reads (in the bottom left corner of the screen) ‘Page 5 1/29’. Could this calculation errors be related to each other?

[Bill]

No, when I open your file, I see Kapittel I numbered (wrongly) as II, and II as III.
But if I change the style of the paragraph before the Kapittel I, then the chapter numbering is correct. And then if I reapply the style, the numbering does not change (this is fine).
So there is something fixed by the paragraph style change but I don't know what.

The fix is only temporary. The numbering will be numbered wrongly if the document is saved, then reloaded. The problem is that the Text body style applied to the paragraph before the Kapittel I paragraph is assigned to Outline Level 3. For proper numbering, there should be an Outline Level 2 paragraph before the Outline Level 3 paragraph and an Outline Level 1 paragraph before the Outline Level 3 paragraph. Putting the Outline Level 3 paragraph before any Outline Level 1 paragraph breaks the numbering.

[Hagar Delest]

Thanks Bill, hadn't tried to reopen the file.
I suspected the outline level before but did not really believed it would break the numbering. Quite a bug IMHO.

[Bill]

I wouldn't call it a bug. The problem is caused by the insertion of an Outline Numbering paragraph in a position inconsistent with the Outline Numbering settings. Outline Numbering is hierarchical with Level 1 at the top of the hierarchy, so the actual outline should start with a Level 1 paragraph. In this case, the outline has been started with a Level 3 paragraph and Outline Numbering has inserted Level 1 and Level 2 internally to maintain the hierarchy. The attached document was created using LO 6.0.0.3 and it shows the same behavior:

Outline_Numbering.odt

(9.25 KiB) Downloaded 13 times

[Bill]

So when you open the document, the numbering continues below outline number level 2? You get:

• Kapittel I
  
  • § 1
  • § 2
  • § 3
• Kapittel II
  
  • § 4
  • § 5

Did I understand you correctly?

You're showing continuous numbering in Level 2. If that is the intent, then I don't think it's possible. In an outline, Level 1 is always numbered continuously and the numbering in lower levels always restarts after a higher level entry. The "Continue Numbering" option is only used to continue level 1 numbering from a previous list after a list is interrupted by unnumbered text. That option does nothing when applied to levels below level 1.

[CannedMan]

There is, however, a button for selecting continuous numbering, but this only applies to all levels. The only workaround I know for this, is to remove H1 from the outline numbering and select these headings to have numbering in their paragraph style, and then set H2 to outline level 1, H3 to level 2, etc.