Forum Discussion
MS Word TOC and Heading Problems
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.
Hi, I red your comment about style and think that you can help me. I am writing my thesis and modified my styles according to needs. For example, I create a style (modified from Heading 1) and named it as "H1". Now I need to change the table reference from "Table 2" to "Table 1-2". "1" refers to "Heading 1". However, because I changed the heading name word doesn't recognize "H1" as a "Heading 1". I tried to change the heading name from "H1" to "Heading 1" but because it is a reserved built in style ı can not.
How can I change the name from H1 to Heading 1 or how can I recall Heading 1 back (I can not see Heading 1 among the styles)
thanks for your time
Since you are using table captions with heading numbering, you really need to make use of the built-in heading styles for your numbering needs. Restarting captions will be a nightmare to maintain if you make use of custom heading styles.
For instructions on setting up multilevel numbering for your headings, see https://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html (the article applies to ribbon versions, that is, to Word 2007 and later). You can customize the font, size and other paragraph style properties of the headings to suit the needs of your document.
You will have to apply the appropriate heading styles to text paragraphs.
baycuneyt You should be able to find the default Heading # styles by pressing Ctrl+Shift+s to display the Apply Styles dialog and then type Heading 1 into the Style name control (actually as soon as you enter hea, Heading 1 will probably appear.) when it does, click on Apply to format the selection with the Heading 1 Style. Then follow the steps in the following article by the late Shauna Kelly to modify that and the other Heading # styles with your desired numbering.
"How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in your Microsoft Word document" on the following page of the Late Shauna Kelly's website:
http://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html?p=1768
When you have that set up, you can use the Replace facility to replace your H1 style with the Heading 1 style and likewise for the other custom H styles that you have set up.
- 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. - 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! - Thanks, give me a few minutes to see if it corrects the problem.
