Forum Discussion
Numbering and bullets in Word docs keep disappearing
When working as a team on Word files within SharePoint, I constantly have problems with things like heading numbering disappearing (or changing from numbers to bullets), bullets going missing or bullets turning into numbers. From what I can see, the custom list styles in the documents go missing. Other formatting things happen, like table column widths messing up. I can fix it all, PDF it, save and close, and when I open the Word doc again it's all gone haywire once more.
I was always approaching this from a Word bug perspective, but maybe it's something I'm doing wrong in regard to SharePoint. Essentially, this is my workflow:
1. Create Word template.
2. Create documents from Word template (bid response schedules, one for each).
3. Upload all files to SharePoint.
At this point, the template resides on my computer, in my OneDrive folder. As I understand it, this shouldn't be an issue because unless people play around with what template the document is linked to, it shouldn't change. However, often I found that the template had reverted back to "Normal". So, I started saving the template in a location on SharePoint (along with the documents) and making sure it was linked to it.
When the document styles go haywire, to fix it all I need to do is link back to the template and update the styles. I have a macro that has the location of the template hard coded, and it links the document to the template, updates the styles, then turns off the checkbox again. (Note: I always make sure the "update styles from template" is kept off). Whether the template is on my computer or on SharePoint, once the styles start messing up they will continue to keep messing up, so putting the template on SharePoint doesn't seem to have fixed it.
I'm outlining this process because all the forum posts I've found seem to treat SharePoint more as a space where templates are uploaded and people use the "New" button to create and then save documents straight into SharePoint from Templates that are uploaded into the site library. This is obviously not how we are using it: these Teams sites are created per project, we do our submission and then move on. I'm the only one creating documents and other people contribute to them.
Is there something I'm doing fundamentally wrong and that's why these issues happen? If not, has anyone seen this issue and worked out what causes it?
I see 950 people have viewed this post but there are no replies. If you've found this because you're having the same issue it would be helpful to hear from you so that we could get someone looking at this issue as I know colleagues at other companies who have the exact same issue so I believe it's a SharePoint/Teams problem when interacting with Word. It's been so long since I've worked on a project like this off a server instead of online that I can't remember if it used to happen then (I don't think it did).
Similar posts in the Office forum usually end up being referred to the SharePoint forum without any solution, so here's our chance.
We are having the same problem with our sharepoint site and our bids, similar processes here.
We also experience similar problems b/w Word and SharePoint. Specifically, we have lost the heading number on two of our sections in a document. However, the rest of the document is correct. Even the table of contents is correct. This occurs most often during collaboration. The most frustrating part is that when this is fixed by one of our team members, it doesn't take long before the document is reverted back to missing Heading Numbering. We do not require checkout on the Sharepoint library. I've only seen this with collaboration.
1. Does anyone see this behavior with a library that requires checkout?
2. Has anyone tested to see if, when you check out the document, fix the format/template issue, then check it back in, does the document ever revert back to having the same issues?
Curious if anyone ever helped you find a solution to this? I'm having the same problem and struggling to find the workaround. From what I can tell, the problem occurs because (at least in our case), the template is actually launching from a locally synced version of the company sharepoint folder. When I create a document based on this template the document template path becomes c:\Users\(myusername)\(synced sharepoint library folder name\template.dotx. When a colleague enters the same document (which also resides in sharepoint and is accessible to all parties) his/her version of the document is still pointing to the local template on my C drive, and obviously his/her computer is not finding that path. I haven't found a way to attach a document template in word to an actual network location (that doesn't include a local c drive and username in the path), so essentially every time a different person opens the file, it breaks. I do find it strange that this only applies to the automatic bullets and numbering, while not affecting the styles. Especially considering that the auto numbering and bullets in this template have been associated with styles in the template. I also was under the impression that word only calls to the template file when you first create the new document (or go to use in building blocks, etc.), so I'm not sure why it seems to happen repeatedly.
Would love to hear if anyone has found the solution for this, as it is killing the usability of otherwise very useful templates we have created.
Thanks
cdarrowNo, nothing yet. Hoping that it might get some traction because every company I've worked at has this problem so it's got to be an issue that deserves attention as it wrecks the usefulness of it.
I don't think the document losing the connection with the template affects it: I have mine linked to templates in SharePoint and they stay fairly solidly connected even though the bullets and numbering goes haywire.
I sync my SharePoint locations to OneDrive so I too have the template linked to somewhere on my local drive initially, however in each template I have a macro that changes the link to the SharePoint location (and updates the styles, which fixes the numbering and bullets again, at least until the next time multiple authors cause it to drop off).
You can link it directly to the SharePoint location if you view the site in Explorer view (which you can only do from Internet Explorer), then drag the folder containing the template into your quick access. Once there you can browse to it in the template dialog and attach the template that way.
I was able to "fix" this issue by creating an Organization Assets Library
You'll need admin privileges on Sharepoint and O365, but it's really easy to do.
This allows users to access the template library directly from within Word (File->New tab), which has been a fairly popular update among our users. When a new document is launched from one of the templates via this method, if you go to the developer tab and check the template address, it should show a URL for the common sharepoint location where this is stored. As I mentioned in my previous reply, I was noticing that when people opened the templates from sharepoint their username was being inserted into the file path for the template, in other words it was referring to a locally stored "synced" version of the template, not the real template file. So when another user would go into that document, their computer would be looking for the template location and, when it wouldn't be found because they wouldn't have access to the creator user's locally synced folder, it would default to Normal.dotm and cause all of these problems you're describing. From what I've read, Word will always default back to Normal.dotm if it can't find the real template.
Give it a shot, it's kind of cool anyway, and seems to have eliminated all of the problems we were having - all of my custom Quick Parts, autotext, and other custom xml have been working flawlessly since this change.
One other note - all users will need at least "Read" access to the sharepoint folder that you name as your Org. Assets Library. I just recently had an issue where most people were unable to see certain templates, and it turned out to just be certain documents with incorrect permissions at the sharepoint level. Once I deleted all the unique permissions to default to the folder-level permissions (all org. users can read, only certain users can edit), they showed back up for everyone.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
- Forgot to mention - If you don't have admin privs, another work-around I figured out works is to go into the file that someone launched (so it will have their user name in the template path), and replace it with the sharepoint URL for the actual template: https://(YOUR_ORG_NAME).sharepoint.com/sites/(YOUR_SITE_NAME)/Templates/(TEMPLATE_NAME).dotx
Clip off everything in the URL after the / that precedes "Forms", as this refers to the view, not the actual library path. I had pretty good luck with that fixing the issue as well, but its definitely a reactive approach vs. proactive.cdarrow Interesting theory. What level of admin privileges are you talking about? I have site collection admin for each site but not access to the SharePoint Admin panel which is an IT-only thing (for obvious reasons). Not sure if it's the solution to my issue: I have my documents linked to the template which is stored on the same SharePoint site as all the documents that use it, so the template address is something like:
"https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/bid_name/Submission/Submission%20Templates/Template.dotm"
This doesn't tend to change: in the past I had issues with the template being on my local drive or a server that not everyone had access to, in which case it would constantly default to someone's Normal.dotm and need to be relinked, but ever since I started using the macro which directed it to the SharePoint location it's been fairly solid.
It's the list styles getting messed up that's the issue, and it seems to be caused by multiple authors in the document so it appears there is a conflict somewhere where it's getting bad information or corruption to this. I have found that documents with lots of tracked changes or comments behave even worse, and sometimes won't come good even with refreshing the styles from the template. I have to accept all changes and delete all comments, then refresh.
Here's a picture of what keeps happening to the docs. The paragraph styles stay intact, however the list styles keep getting cleared. On the left is how it should be, and the right is what keeps happening, necessitating constant refreshing of the styles from the template to get the numbering and bullets back in.
AndrewB_33334 I have also started having the same issue. I am running MS Word on MAC.
My tip for fixing this to current document:
- Open a new document
- Create the heading levels with numbering styles you want.
- Save the file as "Word macro-enabled template" (*.dotm)
Then:
- Open the file that needs fixing
- Go to "Developer" tab => Choose "Document template"
- On the "Templates" tab, attach the *.dotm that you've just saved.
- Remember to check the "Automatically update document styles"
- Press OK
If you don't see the Developer tab, please go to Word options => "Customize the Ribbon". On the right-hand side box, scroll down and check the box "Developer" => OK
Hope that this helps.
Trang_Le Yes, refreshing the styles from the template is the way to get the bullets and numbering back, however they will continue to disappear when the document is edited on SharePoint so I usually set up a macro to do this and it gets run dozens of times a day. It appears that multiple authors, tracked changes and comments are the things that cause the problems. It's up to Microsoft to find a permanent fix to their incredibly unstable working environment.
This is a major problem for my company as well! We fix the file 2-3 times a day. We're getting to the point that we may just quit fixing it until the file is ready for submission, but that's also affecting our professional appearance to internal reviewers!
- I have the exact same problem, and the macro is the way I had intended to "solve" the issue. The problem, of course, is that the template attachment is not stable at the web-based SharePoint location or on the shared server of my organization; no matter where the template is located, when users enter the document, they are often pathed to their local "Normal" template. Even though I, too, am certain the "Automatically Update Document Styles" checkbox is unchecked, I see my document losing bullets, replacing bullets, swapping list types, etc., all the time. In my most recent document, my custom list styles have disappeared and been replaced with multiple copies of a list style called "Normal" which mimics the appearance of my custom list style. I can watch this behavior happen even when I am the only person in the document and the document is pathed to a location on our shared server. As the document autosaves it seems to lose track of the custom lists and their associated paragraph styles. cdarrow's proposed diagnosis led me to move the template off the SharePoint and onto a stably named location on our shared servers, but that hasn't solved the issue. I also tried using the web address of the file as opposed to the locally synched version of the template - that didn't solve the issue either. I'll try to explore the Organization Assets Library solution and I'm interested in seeing whether all my users have the latest version of MS Word, as nikkipike's comment suggests Microsoft has repaired this issue in their latest release (fingers crossed!)
The Microsoft numbering issue seems to be partly fixed in the 2208 release. For our clients the issue seems to be less frequent but still occurring.
One of the issues a few clients have noticed is that after resetting the paragraph styles most paragraphs are back to what they should be. However on a random set of paragraphs the actual outline number has the format changed eg the number is italic in some case or blue text in other cases. This is due to some random font formatting being applied to the paragraph mark only. By selecting the paragraph mark and pressing Ctrl+Spacebar this corrects the issue with the outline number in the selected paragraph. To stop this happening I have updated the outline numbering schemes in the templates so I have hard coded the correct font formatting of the actual outline number (eg set the font, font type (regular or bold), font size and font colour). I'm hoping this with disguise this random issue and make the users a bit more confident.
I have also spoken to some of my legal clients who do not seem to be having any of these issues. However they don't use SharePoint (all their files are stored in iManage)!nikkipike - out of curiosity, since making this change (assigning formatting directly to the numbering scheme in the list style), have you noticed that when you save as pdf (assuming you ever do that), the numbering converts to a bitmap image in the pdf, which in turn, gets a downsampled/compressed/blurry appearance? Just the number, not the whole heading. I have font formatting on both the heading styles and the numbering scheme and one or the other seems to be causing this problem for me. I can identify when this is going to happen by clicking in the header, and that will cause the numbering on affected headings to display somewhat transparent. Then I just go to that heading level and do the Ctrl+spacebar trick and it fixes the issue. I can't figure out if this issue is from some issue with the style linked to that level, or with the formatting applied to the numbering itself (but I suspect the latter, given that only the number is affected). I think I initially set mine up this way in an attempt to address the same problem you and Thetravis12 are describing, but eventually decided to just go through, locate all of the random italic markers, highlighted, and changed those italicized paragraph markers to "Normal" style. Have not had the italic numbering issue since, but seem to have this new issue with pdf-ing to bitmap images.
FYI everyone, I've been sleeping around with some other threads and found a similar discussion on the Community forum (too many MS forums!!) that has a bunch of Word MVPs on it confirming what nikkipike first reported here - this is a known issue that MS is working on, and thinks they at least partially fixed in recent updates (definitely not fully, since I've had the issue since).
Best practices for living with this issue while they work on it appear to be
#1 trying to prevent people from using Word Online (although there appears to be no way to programmatically restrict this, or as I say, no way of idiot-proofing!),
#2 avoid modifying linked headings while coauthoring with tracked changes on.
#3 use a macro or otherwise train people how to reapply styles from template.
#4 When all else fails (and likely will), Drink.
Well, my colleague and I updated to the latest version of Word (2210, Build 15726.20174) and saw no improvement in behavior. As soon as he entered the document and began making changes to the headings and bulleted lists, we saw indentations, numberings, table captions, cross-references seem to change at random. I confirmed again that he and I were both pathed to the same template and that "Automatically Update Document Styles" was unchecked in the Templates and Add-ins dialog box.
I wrote a macro to re-attach the template, override the document styles, and then toggle that checkbox off again. That partially improved matters, but the list styles don't seem to overwrite completely. I added content to the macro to individually overwrite each list style, and confirmed that it does work when the working file is stored locally on my machine, but it does not work when the file is stored on SharePoint. I get an error that the macro can't find the file, which I suspect is due to the file having a web address for a path (e.g., https://.....documentname.docx). So, my next attempt will be to write some code to sequentially select all instances of the heading styles, 1-9, all the custom bulleted list styles, and all the custom numbered list styles, and reapply both the list style and the paragraph style to each element.
This is obviously a band-aid on a bullet hole. SharePoint is specifically meant for this sort of multi-user collaboration, yet it fails catastrophically when multiple users collaborate in a document! When something is this broken in the software, what's the mechanism for raising it to Microsoft's attention?
- With respect to the built in List / Bullet style in Word I never use these and try and keep people away from using these styles as they randomly seem to change to what they were when last used (perhaps in a completely different document) you updated. I also keep them away of the bullet and numbered buttons on the Paragraph group in the Home tab.
I always create a set of new paragraph styles for list numbers and bullets and then I then list together in an outline number list. I think make sure the Styles pane is updated to list the styles they should be using. This way the reset styles works as expected.
Not sure this is of any help.
We are experiencing the same problem on macOS. None of the hints in this threads has resolved the issue for us. The main issue is that the numbering template disconnects from the headings – again and again. Unbelievable that Microsoft does not fix the problem in several years.
- Experiencing the same issue on macOS. None of the suggestions in this thread have solved it. Frustrating that Microsoft hasn't fixed this problem despite its persistence for years.
It's inconceivable to me that such a basic feature can remain broken for this long when using Microsoft's own software with its own collaboration system, however if you look for the issue the only references you'll find to it are on forums like this which are only user to user. My guess is that they simply lack the institutional knowledge to fix something as old as Word when it doesn't play well with a newer system. I'm guessing it will never be fixed as they're pushing their web version which will suit the requirements of 80% of people.
- Having the same issue here. I'm on version 2308.
I tried saving my .dotx locally before creating the .docx from it, and it still happens. The "Automatically update document styles" option is unchecked.
My workaround is to re-attach the dotx, enable the "Automatically update document styles", then disable the option again. Pretty annoying.
I've had it happen to a file that only I ever opened. I always open it from my synced SharePoint folder; I never open through Teams or through the web app.aleblancnuv Thanks for keeping the issue alive. Our only hope now is that Microsoft sees how prevalent and catastrophic this issue is.
Your solution is workable, but it's only really effective when there are no other users in the document. Otherwise, in my experience, the template attachment loads asynchronously for the different users and the document is unstable. You can always get things set back to normal at the end; but in the meantime, the document is an unworkable mess for everyone actively participating in it. Of course, this discourages users from applying the styles and pre-loaded content (like tables, callout boxes, etc.) that you so painstakingly generated in your template! Simultaneous, multi-user collaboration is the lynchpin of SharePoint. If you can't keep a document stable, while also using a template, a major function of SharePoint collapses. This is especially dismaying and embarrassing when you're part of a large organization (hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of users) and you'd like to create organization-wide standards (which I have!), but you have to tell alllll of your users, "Now, bear in mind, this will look like total chaos while you're actually using the document..."
Just recording my company's experience with this problem.
On seemingly random occasions, our bullets and heading styles lose their front part (the bullets and numbers). I developed the company template from scratch, so I know the nitty gritty details. We use a multilevel list, tied into built in styles (Heading 1, 2, 3, and 4) with auto numbering (V.0, V.X, V.X.Y, V.X.Y.Z). Our bulleted styles are custom styles.
The problem has been troubleshot down to it being only an issue when a member of our international team gets into the document. They have a different IT department that sets up their computers, and I know they use a newer version of MS Word (we are all generally on MS Word 2016, they have the autosave feature, so I know it's a newer edition). We've sent them in to try to figure out the configuration issue. I believe, for our company, the fix will come when we can get all the computers that access the files to be as similar as we can get them. Same version of word (all the US based team), no issue. Send it to the international team-broken file with no headings and bullets. More than trying to adjust things within Word (configuring the template, file, your individual word settings, etc.), I would attempt to focus on the computers at large that access the file.
Would love a fix from Microsoft-sincerely, a representative for a ~500 person company
DougRad Interesting that you were able to narrow it down to specific users! I'm thinking I may need to meet with the couple of suspects I have in my org. to see if I can find the variable. I know it isn't a version issue, as I've confirmed everyone in my (relatively small) org. is on the exact same version/build of O365 Business. I think I'm in @nikkipike 's corner now, that it could be a "Word Online" vs. "Desktop Version" issue. Nothing else seems to make sense.
I spent an hour and a half the other night watching an online training by a "Microsoft Certified Trainer" and "Office Specialized Master" to see if it was possible there was some aspect of list styles that I was missing that could be contributing. I can't say I learned anything that I didn't already know, but thought he provided some interesting/funny/demoralizing context on the biggest problems with List Styles/Multi-level Lists.
Some key takeaways from a Microsoft Certified Trainer on the topic:
Goes on to talk about how there are billions of existing word documents and if they "fixed" lists, it could break all existing documents:
His advice for addressing any numbering/list issues in a template:
I may actually take his advice when I have some time and just try fully redeveloping them... seems like he has little hope for there being a quick fix.Happy Friday!
