Word 2007: Outline numbering

Another thing Word 2007 has hidden very well from power users is outline numbering. You used to access it from the Styles and Formatting task pane, but don’t try that in Word 2007 otherwise none of your numbered headings will connect to each other! And there’s no easy way to see what to do to get it working.

However, help is at hand in various Microsoft forum posts and replies by some Microsoft Word MVPs. Go to http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us, select Office, then the Office version you’re using, then filter by Word. Search for phrases such as ‘outline numbering for headings’, ‘outline numbered styles’ etc. and you should find what you’re looking for (I used to have links to some good ones, but Microsoft keeps changing their website so the links no longer work).

BTW, Microsoft MVPs are unsung heroes in my book. They are not employees, they don’t get many benefits, and they volunteer their time freely. All the ones I know, or whose names I regularly see in forums, contribute an enormous amount of time and effort for little or no benefit to them. They’ll test things and report their findings, and they do it all for free. Congratulations guys—Microsoft should reward you handsomely for eliminating many of their support calls!

See also:

• Christine Kent’s blog post on Word Numbering and Multi-Level Lists
• Numbering Headings in Word 2007 Multilevel lists (from Dummies.com) (thanks for this link, Jean P)
• How to create numbered headings or outline numbering: http://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/outlinenumbering.html
• 10 steps to creating a numbered heading style in Word [2003], by Susan Harkins (http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-steps-to-creating-a-numbered-heading-style-in-word/)
• Taming multilevel list numbering (for lists, not headings): https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/word-2007-taming-multilevel-list-numbering/

[Links last checked March 2014]