Forum Discussion
Numbering and bullets in Word docs keep disappearing
Yeah, I've had the same issues with tracked changes while coauthoring - not sure if my Org Asset tip will fix that or not, but seemed to generally improve a lot of the style conflict issues I was having, so figured I'd mention it - should be able to get the job done with Site Admin and Office Apps Admin, you'll just need the Sharepoint Online Management Shell (instructions in that link I provided).
I actually read on 3 different websites (but couldn't verify from Microsoft), that track changes is not supported while coauthoring. Obviously it still works (sort of, at least it's "possible"), otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it, but I've noticed things definitely get funky once it gets turned on. I can also verify that List Styles seem to be the most frequent problem (numbered headings most often for me). I can't recall if co-authoring prevents you from being able to edit the same line or same paragraph, but I imagine if it's the latter then editing a list style might affect one of the areas someone else is editing at that moment and cause the conflict? I've resolved to waiting to do any larger formatting changes until after everyone leaves the document, which is inconvenient to say the least and puts me in the hot seat when we're trying to make a deadline. May have to try to implement a "use comment bubbles instead of track changes" policy?
Could be some compounding issues though who knows. List Styles are IMO one of the quirkiest (/most annoying) aspects of MS Word (other than maybe table formatting?), so I can't say I have a firm enough grasp to weigh in - but let me try anyway haha. Reading your comment about the macro set to auto-update styles did make me think of something I read one time - most likely a Greg Maxey or Charles Kenyon post, as that's where I learned 80% of what I know - I believe I remember seeing something say to never leave the auto-update styles checkbox checked. Ever since then, whenever I load a template, I select it while loading, then go back in and deselect it once the updates have taken effect. Can't say I know the what/why, but it may be worth a try to have a second macro turn it back off after initially updating? Just a not very well-founded suggestion, since it seems Microsoft isn't keen on weighing in/helping out. If you're lucky maybe Mr. Maxey or Mr. Kenyon will weigh in one day - every once in awhile I see them active on these threads but I've always been too starstruck to message them! haha.
Good luck!
We have a number of client who are having lots of similar issues with co-authoring Word documents with the paragraph numbering disappearing. These documents are attached to a template with a button to Reset the styles which repairs the document. However it is now happening so frequently that Co-authoring is becoming unusable. The latest release of Office seems to be even worse!
- One thing that's been suggested to me is that tracked changes and comments make it worse: I haven't been working on a project since I heard that so I haven't tried it out yet, but if you can it might be worth deleting all comments and tracking from a document that's causing you trouble and see if that improves things. Obviously comments are useful in a co-authoring environment so it's not a long-term solution, but a cause would be good to find.
AndrewB_33335 I have been encountering the same issue. We are using Sharepoint to allow multiple people to collaborate on Word documents with Tracked Changes on and using Comments as well. Sometimes the paragraph numbers/bullets disappear and other times they change to Asian characters. These problems are a bit random because not all of our Word files are getting corrupted in this manner and I haven't been able to identify a pattern that is contributing to the problem. I'm wondering if having multiple people making changes to the same file at the same time is part of the issue. I haven't been able to find posts on other forums/sites describing this problem.
This is a known issue with Microsoft and in theory they have resolved the issue in the latest release of MS Word (if I remember correctly 2209). The important thing is everyone who is co-authoring needs to be on the latest version, they need to use the full Desktop version of MS Word and they need to have Auto Save on.
With this set up the problem has become less frequent but our clients are still getting issues with things changing in the document.
Having a template attached to the document with the correct styles so they can quickly reset the styles has really helped our client work around this problem.
