help needed numbering headings in word

onestep

hi all

Hope you can help - I'm working on my thesis, and all I have left to do is the formatting. It's a big document (about 5Mb, 170 pages) so I wrote it in sub documents, and then put them into one big master document. Sub documents are separated from one another by section breaks. I need to number the headings 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and so on (- chapter 2 will be 2.x; chapter 3 will be 3.x, you get the idea).

And so on to the question! When I click bullets and numbering it will label chapter 1 perfectly, but when I do chapter 2 (having restarted numbering so that it goes 2.x) it changes chapter 1 again. How do I get it to stay the right number?! I realise it's probably something silly and easy, but I've tried all weekend, and I can't get it. So I thought I'd ask you nice lot.

thanks in advance

onestep

Chippy_Minton

See How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in your Microsoft Word document.

village_life

onestep wrote:

hi all

Hope you can help - I'm working on my thesis, and all I have left to do is the formatting. It's a big document (about 5Mb, 170 pages) so I wrote it in sub documents, and then put them into one big master document. Sub documents are separated from one another by section breaks. I need to number the headings 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and so on (- chapter 2 will be 2.x; chapter 3 will be 3.x, you get the idea).

And so on to the question! When I click bullets and numbering it will label chapter 1 perfectly, but when I do chapter 2 (having restarted numbering so that it goes 2.x) it changes chapter 1 again. How do I get it to stay the right number?! I realise it's probably something silly and easy, but I've tried all weekend, and I can't get it. So I thought I'd ask you nice lot.

thanks in advance

onestep

hi from what you've said it appears like your getting slightly confused between two different tools - "headings" and "bullets and numbering" - the two are different

for the master sections and subsections of your document - you will use the 'headings'/style tool - and for bullets within a particular document section, you're free to use bullets and numbering.

the fact that you started with multiple documents and have merged them into one probably worked for you to start with, but unless you used the same styles and formatting in each specific document, you may need to start from scratch.

the easiest way i could suggest to do this is do a select all (Edit>Select All) and change the style to "normal" - you can modify the 'normal' style so that it gives you double line spacing etc without having to go all thru that kerfuffle!

then you need to scroll through your document, and put the headings into the appropriate style, which should change your numbering of each section/subsection etc - in addition your table of contents will be created automatically!

feel free to give me a shout via a pm if you need any more specific examples and advice...