Hanging indent & numbered list

[Carol]

I created a numbered list in Word 2007. I want to create a hanging indent.
The "hanging indent" triangle on the ruler does not move independently of the
"left indent" square.

I also tried using the Paragraph popup to create the hanging indent. It
looks correct in the Preview area at the bottom of the popup, but when I
click "OK" it does not change the way the actual list displays (number
indented 0.25", then first and subsequent lines aligned and indented another
0.25"):

1. First line is indented like this and the
Second line is indented the same amount.

When I change the hanging indent amount, it moves both the first and
subsequent lines to the right by the same amount.

Thanks.

 

[Carol]

Suzanne, I started over by highlighting and setting the numbered list to
"None". Then I highlighted the entire list and applied the first type in the
multilevel lest. But I don't see a place to specify a hanging indent in the
multilevel options.

Also, the numbered list seems to automatically revert back to single level
as that is the option is highlighted in orange on the ribbon, even though I
changed the list to multilevel...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I keep trying to avoid getting dragged into discussions of numbering in Word
2007 because I have not really mastered the way it works there (I am a whiz
in Word 2003). I believe, however, that you need to use Define New
Multilevel List, which gets you to a dialog similar to the Customize Outline
Numbered List dialog in earlier versions. Here you can set the indents and
(very important) link the list levels to specific styles by clicking More to
expose the entire dialog.

I often see recommendations to use Define New List Style instead. This is
even more involved, and I'm far from clear on the benefits of it (as opposed
to a multilevel lists linked to paragraph styles), but the main thing is
that when you click Format | Numbering in that dialog, you get to the Modify
Multilevel List dialog, which is identical to the Define New Multilevel List
dialog. It may be that you can apply a list style to, say Body Text, and
then promote/demote levels in the list without actually changing the
paragraph style (it continues to all be Body Text with different list levels
applied), but I'm just more comfortable with specific numbering formats
linked to different paragraph styles.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Stefan Blom]

The big difference is that in Word 2007 you can no longer access the
numbering options via the Modify Style (or Create Style) dialog box, which
is recommended for Word 97-2003. Home tab | Multilevel List | Define New
Multilevel List is the closest equivalence in Word 2007, at least if you are
dealing with a list created in an older version of Word.

The advantage of using list styles, at least in theory, is that each list
style provides a "wrapper" for an outline numbering scheme. Think of how the
top-level style (and the Modify Style dialog box) used to work in Word
97-2003. In other words, you can modify the numbering by modifying the list
style (via the Modify Style dialog box for the list style).

But you could certainly argue that list styles add a level of complexity to
the process and, of course, we don't yet know anything about possible bugs
associated with them...

I did experience something strange the other day regarding a multilevel
bulleted list, but I don't know what caused it. I couldn't fix it by editing
the list style, though.

Here are the symptoms: All of a sudden the indentation for the top-level
bullet was wrong. Looking at the style description in the Modify Style
dialog box I could see nothing wrong, and going into Format, Numbering
removed the bullets from text. Instead I exited and closed the document
without saving, and then I copied the list style and the paragraph styles
associated with it from another, working document.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm glad I'm not the only one still floundering here! Stefan, you wouldn't
believe how many of your numbering-related posts I've saved over the past
year or so and referred to when I was trying to update one of my
numbering-related articles!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org