And, oh yes... Word 2003 SP 1 on XP.

The conversion process created a couple of hundred styles
and I think I've rooted them all out. The problems seem to be mine
and Word's.

You should probably take a look at the numbering section of
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/index.html

I think there's a solution for this, and I'm getting close to it, but it's
amazing to me that there are active newsgroups and web sites for this one
problem--eight years after Microsoft introduced its booby-trapped list
technology. As usual, "powerful" and "difficult" go hand in hand. I just
couldn't see the "powerful" part until I read some of the web pages. As you
seem to know already, list templates are independent of (but maddeningly
interacting with) style templates, and the only way to control them is by
defining your own list template in VBA. The six list templates that Word
happens to consider relevant to your document on a given afternoon seem to be
unstable and not subject to your control. The VBA code creates your own list
template-- but it needs to include all the list types you'll need.

Below is a macro in my template-- called "autonew", it runs when I create a
new document (but you can run it any time). In its current form it controls
ONLY numbered lists. My headings already work correctly (I'd better not say
that too loud or they'll spontaneously self-destruct). I'm not sure about the
intricate combinations of heading and list types that you describe. But I do
know that your macro must define all the list types that you'll want. And I
encountered a problem that applies to your question: I wanted to have the
same three styles work both in ordinary text or within a table, but my main
text has a left margin 1 inch from the real margin. In tables I don't want
that, so I needed two separate groups of list styles. But it seems to be
impossible to have two sets of numbered list styles, because they're using
the same list levels (1, 2, 3). So list styles need to work in tables without
alteration. Note: my macro defines only aspects relevant to list numbering;
other formatting of list styles is still in my paragraph styles. Some people
do this differently.

Just to give you the proper level of fear... when I was trying to create the
three separate styles to work in tables, my documents somehow decided that my
Normal style should be bulleted, so everything in the document had a bullet.
Nothing I could think of would remedy this except an AutoOpen macro to say
that Normal has NO LIST TEMPLATE. If anyone can tell me how to get rid of
this problem properly, let me know.

Before I show the code... I also have some brute-force klugey macros for
making lists that are actually tables but they look just like text. Not
elegant but very stable. I can post them if anyone is interested.

Chris Brewster
_________________________

Sub AutoNew()

' Sets up numbered list styles using the "MyLists" list template for
' paragraph styles named "List Number 1/2/3", to create multi-level
' lists with this formatting:

'         1. First level
'            a. Second level
'               i.  Third level
'               ii. Third

'Check if the "MyLists" ListTemplate exists

Dim aListTemplate As ListTemplate
Exists = False
For Each aListTemplate In ActiveDocument.ListTemplates
   If aListTemplate.Name = "MyLists" Then Exists = True
Next aListTemplate

'Create it if it doesn't

If Not Exists Then
   Set newList = ActiveDocument.ListTemplates.Add _
               (OutlineNumbered:=True, Name:="MyLists")
End If

'List Number styles
   
   With ActiveDocument.ListTemplates("MyLists").ListLevels(1)
       .NumberFormat = "%1."
       .TrailingCharacter = wdTrailingTab
       .NumberStyle = wdListNumberStyleArabic
       .Alignment = wdListLevelAlignLeft
       .NumberPosition = InchesToPoints(1#)
       .TextPosition = InchesToPoints(1.25)
       .TabPosition = InchesToPoints(1.25)
       .ResetOnHigher = True
       .StartAt = 1
       .LinkedStyle = "List Number"
   End With
   With ActiveDocument.ListTemplates("MyLists").ListLevels(2)
       .NumberFormat = "%2."
       .TrailingCharacter = wdTrailingTab
       .NumberStyle = wdListNumberStyleLowercaseLetter
       .Alignment = wdListLevelAlignLeft
       .NumberPosition = InchesToPoints(1.25)
       .TextPosition = InchesToPoints(1.5)
       .TabPosition = InchesToPoints(1.5)
       .ResetOnHigher = True
       .StartAt = 1
       .LinkedStyle = "List Number 2"
   End With
   With ActiveDocument.ListTemplates("MyLists").ListLevels(3)
       .NumberFormat = "%3."
       .TrailingCharacter = wdTrailingTab
       .NumberStyle = wdListNumberStyleLowercaseRoman
       .Alignment = wdListLevelAlignLeft
       .NumberPosition = InchesToPoints(1.5)
       .TextPosition = InchesToPoints(1.75)
       .TabPosition = InchesToPoints(1.75)
       .ResetOnHigher = True
       .StartAt = 1
       .LinkedStyle = "List Number 3"
   End With
   

End Sub

A few additional thoughts (from a fellow tech writer and sometime Frame
user):

You might want to think again about the Table Styles - I've found table
positioning more difficult with them than without them. Check your Table
Properties - Options button and make sure "Automatically resize" is off.

Take the serial crashes as an indication that you need to do some cleaning
up. See http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm

Hmm, interesting to think what the response would be if you decided you'd
take over the software you are documenting. I wonder who is santioning and
paying for this handover of doc to developer team. Hope you have costed the
effort involved and will continue to cost the support you'll have to give to
untangle the documents!

I'd use paragraph styles for those, but if you have developers pasting text
between tables and ordinary body you may want to simplify the design so as
not to use separate styles. Alternatively a clean-up macro that applies
corresponding table/no-table styles according to context can be very useful.

Yes - follow Shauna's step-by-step and you should be quite safe here.

Yes, definitely put List Number styles into a multi-level (outline) list. If
you didn't have numbering on the Headings 3 and 4 you could keep them in the
outline (with no number) and use levels 5 and 6 for the step numbers. But
that will produce a jump in numbering if there is a "missing" level (Heading
3, then steps, then Heading 4 will number the Heading 4 as if there were
another one between Heading 3 and first set of steps.) So in your case use a
separate outline list for the step numbers. I usually use another separate
outline for the bullet lists - you can still mix and match the list items.

If this is going to be maintained by developers then if you can't find a
real style to restart the top level list you may be better off in Word 2003
using the right-click command. Whatever, you will need to think about how
you make sure all the developers do the same thing and avoid the nasty
areas. If you go for a dummy style or hidden LISTNUM to restart then you
will have to support that with a custom toolbar and a modicum of user
training - works well if you do that, but you'll just get messy documents
back to tidy up if you don't. See
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/ListRestartMethods.htm.

If you'd rather not, you don't need to use VBA in Word 2003 to set up good
style-list linking, just adapt the method explained for Headings in
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html for the List
Number styles.

I would create a clean template to embody your document design, if you
haven't done already. Then you will have a fresh source of document shells
to paste converted text into - you can get rid of a lot of mess this way.

Remember that direct formatting overrides styles, as in Frame. Turn on Tools

the Styles and Formatting Pane (Show Formatting in use). This is enormously
helpful in tidying up documents, though it doesn't necessarily distinguish
direct formatted numbering that looks like the style number formatting. Use
Ctrl-Q (reset paragraph formatting) to be sure to get numbering from style.

Turn off all or most Smart Paste options - these seem to have a fairly
disastrous effect on style-based numbering. Check out other advice on
options.

See here for links to other important "long document" issues:

http://daiya.mvps.org/bookword.htm