[Solved] H2 are automatically numbered and I can't stop it

[MTB]

Hello,

I have a 100 page document I have done in writer. It is a history document and each heading 2 starts with a year, as it is a timeline I am constructing for a history project. I need the H2 to not have automatic numbering formatting, but this seems to be impossible to do.

Writer keeps formatting my headings with a number format that puts a bar that looks like a 1 in front of each H2.
I can remove it by clicking into the H2 and clicking the numbering option in the formatting ribbon at the top.
But every time I save and close the document, and then open it again, the 1 bar appears at the start of each H2 again.

I have spent hours fiddling with Outline Numbering options. I switch it off for headings, then when the document is newly opened it is back again.
I have tried changing the style for Headings to no numbering. It always returns when I open the document again.
I have tried highlighting each heading and selecting paragraph styles/no numbering. It always returns when I open the document again.

How can I turn this off? I don't want any headings in the document to be numbered or to have that weird bar that looks like a 1 in front of it?

Thanks for any help given.

[Zizi64]

Can you upload a small, ODF type sample file here?

This issue may related to the applied/adjusted styles and the chapter numbering. We can examine your settings in a specific document only.

[floris v]

You may at some point have enabled numbering for the Heading 2 paragraphs by direct formatting. And when you click the Numbering buttons on the toolbar, you are applying direct formatting. You may have to hunt down all Heading 2 paragraphs (Find & Replace, More options, Paragraph styles, select heading 2, click Find all, close the dialog box, don't click the mouse, that will lose the selection), then press Ctrl+M to remove all direct formatting from those headings. Then make sure that in the Chapter Numbering dialog, there's absolutely no text in the Separator - Before box.

[MTB]

Thanks for your replies. I am not using Chapter numbering. Or any numbering at all. I use h2 to create an index which is also a timeline for my history research because the headings are in year order. I will upload a small part of the document.

[Bill]

Are you using the ODT file format? I can't reproduce this using ODT.

[John_Ha]

1. Highlight any heading
2. Click the Numbering icon in the toolbar.

This toggles numbering ON and OFF.
.

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[MTB]

Small sample for heading 2 problem.doc

(20 KiB) Downloaded 107 times

[MTB]

Hi John. Thanks for your response. Toggling the numbers works until I close the file. When I open the file again, the numbers are back. Is it because I have saved the file as a .doc file?

[Bill]

The problem seems to occur when using the DOC format. When using ODT, toggling the numbering using the Toolbar icon turns the numbering on or off in Outline Numbering. When using DOC, toggling the numbering using the Toolbar icon changes the numbering in the selected heading and doesn't change the setting in Outline Numbering.

[John_Ha]

Highlight each heading and click the numbering icon to remove the numbering.

Or, as there are multiple formats in the file, it may be easiest to start again.

1. Edit > Select All
2. Clear formatting - it's in the list where you find the headings etc
3. Reapply the headings.

Always save your files as .odt files. See [Tutorial] Differences between Microsoft and AOO/LO files for a description of differences and for why you should always work in, and save Writer files as .odt, Calc files as .ods, Impress files as .odp, etc.

[John_Ha]

Toggling the numbers works until I close the file. When I open the file again, the numbers are back. Is it because I have saved the file as a .doc file?

Yes. Never save as a .doc file - always save your work as a .odt file and consider it the master. Only create a .doc as a copy if some fool demands you supply one, and delete it after sending it. Read the tutorial.

[MTB]

Thanks for your reply John. But redoing formatting for headings and other stuff throughout a 100 page document would be a lot of work.
Is there no way to just reformat the H2s so that the formatting I want (ie no numbering) sticks?

[Bill]

Is there no way to just reformat the H2s so that the formatting I want (ie no numbering) sticks?

As suggested by floris v earlier, you can use the "Search for Styles" option in "Find and Replace" to select all H2s.

[John_Ha]

Try it and if it doesn't work then do each individually.

There is something strange about the file as there seems to be two numbers, one italic Roman number; one a Chinese? character.

First, save it as a .odt file.

Now make the changes as any changes are likely to be lost or corrupted when you save as a .doc file.

One way to fix it is to backspace through the first character and the numbering and then retype the first character.

When a file has corruptions like this it is difficult to analyse precisely what happened in the past to undo it and one-by-one fixing may be the only option.

[MTB]

Hi John, thanks for your reply. OK I will save it as an odt file and try reformatting the headings. Wish me luck.

[floris v]

I found that if you use Find/Replace to select all heading 2 paragraphs, you can click the Numbering toolbar button twice to remove the offending leading character, which may have got into the document by copy & paste from an external source.

Remember that paragraph style formatting doesn't suppress direct formatting, on the contrary, direct formatting overrules the settings in the paragraph style. You do have lots of direct formatting, and that will mean much unnecessary work for you to keep your document tidy. Use styles to make life easy. You can use a special style for reminders so that they stand out.

[Bill]

The sample document is in Word 6 format. When it is opened with OpenOffice, the Outline Numbering dialogs are the ancient dialogs from OOo 2 which haven't been used for at least 10 years.

When I opened the sample file with AOO 4.1.13 and saved it in Word 97 format, the numbering problem completely disappeared and the Outline Numbering dialogs were the current dialogs.

[MTB]

Hi Bill, thanks so much for checking this! I will give this a try. This might explain why some of my summary documents have this problem and some don't. Cheers.

[John_Ha]

Remember that paragraph style formatting doesn't suppress direct formatting, on the contrary, direct formatting overrules the settings in the paragraph style. You do have lots of direct formatting, and that will mean much unnecessary work for you to keep your document tidy. Use styles to make life easy. You can use a special style for reminders so that they stand out.

I agree wholeheartedly. Take a copy of you document (as a .odt file!!) and Edit > Select All > Ctrl+M (Edit > Select All > Clear formatting ..., also clears headings). This will set everything back to default text. Now go through and apply the styles you want. I would expect this will take less than an hour in a 100 page document and you will have a perfect, well formatted, easy to manage document. See AOO Writer for Students.

You can use a special style for reminders so that they stand out.

Set up a style called Reminder where, say, the text is red. Apply the style to anything you want to remind yourself.

Make absolutely certain you are keeping daily backups of your work. I like to zip the file each day with a name like Fred 2022 12 19.ZIP so I can go back to any given day (and so there is no risk of my losing or editing an older file). You have no idea how many posts we get "I have lost all my work" or "I have lost all my images" or "My file is corrupted and won't open". Also, set Tools > Options > Load/Save to Always keep a backup ..., and set AutoRecovery to ON.

See Re: [Tutorial] Considering a Switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice? Some Useful Information for four nasty bugs in AOO which can cause total data loss.

[MTB]

Hi John,

Thanks for your advice. I tried saving it as an odt file and then did Ctrl +M. This nuked the index at the top of my document. Which was fine.
The H2s all stayed in place. Anything bolded was removed.
The H2s still were numbered, so I went through and hit the number formatting in the top ribbon twice to remove the numbers.
I then saved the file and reopened and the H2s remained without numbers. Yay!
So then I redid the index.
So apart from the bolding disappearing, all is well. Not a biggie.

So problem is solved.

And yes I keep backups in Dropbox and on portable drive of my work. Also have it on two computers.

Thanks so much for all the advice given here I really appreciate it.

Cheers

[Zizi64]

Your attached sample file is full oh inherited/converted character styles. You must delete them, and must reformat the whole document in ODF file format.

But redoing formatting for headings and other stuff throughout a 100 page document would be a lot of work.

Not. It so easy if you use the Styles of the Open/LibreOffice.