Forum Discussion
Ignoring bold (and other formatting) in (numbered) styles
I an trying to create or modify heading styles (1, 1.1, 1.1.1, etc.) in which certain formatting is ignored. For example, in Heading 2 (1.1), I want the style to do nothing about boldface. Let's take the following text:
Declension of nouns. In Russian, nouns change their endings.
When I apply my current version of Heading2, I get: 1.1 Declension of nouns. In Russian, nouns change their endings.
If I modify Heading 2 to eliminate bold, then after applying Heading 2, I get no bold at all: 1.1 Declension of nouns. In Russian, nouns change their endings.
What I want is a Heading 2 style that when applied to text gives me (1) the correct font, (2) the correct size, and (3) NO CHANGES in pre-existing bold or italics:
Declension of nouns. In Russian, nouns change their endings. ==>
1.1 Declension of nouns. In Russian, nouns change their endings.
(To bold the number in the heading I would bold the paragraph marker at the end of the line.)
Is there a way to make Word number/list styles be "agnostic" about formatting like bold and italic?
Hi Richard,
These are paragraph styles. By design, when a paragraph style is applied to existing text any font formatting applied to at least half of a paragraph will be removed. This is not something that can be changed. Once the style is applied, though, you can add direct font formatting and/or character styles to some or all of the text.
You do want to be using paragraph styles attached to numbering for automatic numbering.
Multilevel numbering in Word is easy to mess up. It always has been.
Automatic Paragraph Numbering all starts with the Define New List Style Dialog.
You use that to create and name a list style, within that dialog, when you format numbering you go to the Define New MultiLevel List Dialog. The key is to assign a separate existing paragraph style to each level of numbering. The styles can be built-in styles- or custom styles.
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 and her parallel page How to control bullets. 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/). For styles attached this way, you also control the left indents through the Define New MultiLevel List dialog not the Ruler or the Modify Style dialog.You first want the paragraph styles existing in your document. These can be built-in styles or custom styles or a mix of the two. You can, if you want, modify their formatting later. Then you go to the Define New List Style (Not Define New MultiLevel List! You will get to that dialog in the process, though.)
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.
You want to do this even if what you want is a single-level list if you want the most control over your list.
Videos on this
https://youtu.be/niD6VXPvAyU?t=487
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EICWOeIhsR4
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.
Charles_Kenyon Thank you. I will give these solutions a try.
