Word online messing up formatting and numbers

[Justinxen]

I have a document that was created in Word 2019. There is a numbering system in the doc (1.1.a format) that has been implemented using styles (because every time I tried using the automatic numbering, it just messed up).

Now, this document has been uploaded to a modern SharePoint document library which has the 'open in desktop app by default' feature enabled. This seems to work fine if the user accesses the file directly from the library or from their 'synced' local OneDrive folder.

However, if the document is shared by link or email (which would be a common action), the file opens in Word online no matter what and the numbering is chaos and essentially useless. In addition, if the document is uploaded to Sharepoint as a template for users to create a new document, the same issue happens.

I've tried uploading as a .dotx file, but this only fixes the opening on a shared link issue, and it then causes problems for users opening the file locally.

Other than numbering the document manually (which would be insane and cause more issues when edits are made), I'm not sure what to do.

Any help would be much appreciated as this is currently stalling adoption of SharePoint, OneDrive and 365.

[#2]

Using styles with numbering is the recommended approach (see https://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html).

As you have noticed, the support for multilevel numbering is far from perfect in Word Online. You should post feedback in the Uservoice forum at https://word.uservoice.com/forums/271331-word-for-the-web.

Of course, that is the long-term solution. Short-term, there probably isn't much you can do. If all editors consistently apply numbering by using styles in Word Online, does the number format still break?