Forum Discussion
MS Word TOC and Heading Problems
I created customized heading styles named after a client and then created a multi-level list for five styles as follows:
1.0 Heading 1
1.1 Heading 2
1.1.1 Heading 3
1.1.1.1 Heading 4
1.1.1.1.1 Heading 5
I then linked the multi-level list to the five customized styles. Everything looks good, the styles pop up when the customized headings are selected.
But this resulted in two problems:
1. Using the Navigation pane, I see that the five customized styles are recognized as Heading 1 levels. I then check the Custom Table of Contents-Option feature and see that all five levels are recognized as Heading 1s, not Headings 1 - 5. This does not happen when I use the default Heading styles, which are read properly and indented.
2. The table of contents will do one of two things:
2.a If I Custom Table of Contents-Option and select the customized headings and manually enter their level (i.e., change the Custom Heading 2's TOC level from 1 to 2, and do the same up to the customized heading 5, the updated TOC has a dotted tab leader for Heading 1 only; Headings 2-4 have the solid line. But all are indented and spaced correctly based on the TOC style designs I made.
2.b If I remove the Tab leader in the Custom Table of Contents, the heading values revert back to "1" in the Options panel. When the TOC is updated, all entries read as Heading 1s instead of Headings 1 through 5.
Help!!! I need someone smarter than me to figure this out.
Addendum: The MS Office specialist from Office.com recommended I post here. He was unable to help me despite trying for over an hour.
Hi Ed:
How paragraphs/headings display in the Navigation pane depends on the Outline Level of the style.
When you used the built-in Heading styles, this corresponded to the numbering level. The numbering level is independent of the outline level. The outline level is set in the paragraph formatting of the style, the numbering level is set in the numbering list. My guess is that you based your custom styles on Heading 1. See the link below for ideas on why you may want to use the built-in heading styles; you can add custom names / aliases to them if you want.
You need to modify the paragraph formatting of your custom styles to reflect the outline level you wan used in the Navigation Pane and any Table of Contents.
If you want, you can save a sample document with the problem to a cloud location and post a share link here so someone can examine it and perhaps give you a definitive answer.
Why a sample file is important for troubleshooting - - - - - - - and how to do it.
The following may be information you already know:
If you use automatic paragraph numbering or bullets read Shauna Kelly's directions on numbering and bullets. Start with How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Word 2007 and Word 2010. For large documents you must follow these directions or you will lose your hair!
(Mac version: https://www.brandwares.com/bestpractices/2016/06/outline-numbering-in-word-for-os-x/)This may seem a bit convoluted at first, but it really is not. Just follow the steps. Shauna Kelly's instructions use the built-in heading styles, but you can use any existing paragraph styles including your custom styles. There are, however advantages to using the built-in heading styles when you create a Table of Contents. Here are some more advantages: Why Use Word's Built-In Heading Styles? by Shauna Kelly Note, you can modify these built-in styles to look exactly the way you want.
If you want, I can provide links to videos demonstrating setting up numbering linked to styles.
The basic idea is that the numbering is set using the Define MultiLevel List dialog with each numbering level being attached to an existing paragraph style. Once you have this set up, you should not use the buttons for numbering in the Ribbon but rather apply the appropriate style for that level.
You can save a document with this as a template for future documents if you want so you will not need to do this every time.
- Thanks, give me a few minutes to see if it corrects the problem.
- Here's a link to a sanitized version:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10gsqniCgzlhbQzjhV6qAdfKdOnxsYe6C/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113446492529123096026&rtpof=true&sd=true
Thanks! - Thank you for the very useful links - I've printed a bunch.
I was able to solve the problem thanks to what you said about using the built-in styles. I deleted the customized headings and used the default styles instead. I then linked the customized styles to the corresponding heading style.
While this prevents me from renaming the heading styles, I'm ok with it. I just created custom bullet/number list styles using the client's name. Hopefully, that's good enough to keep them happy.
Thank you, once again.
