Multilevel lists not numbering correctly

Question

Back again, I was getting close to saying done on my suite of 22 templates. They have been through a UAT. Many issues were fixed and enhancements added. 

I have a multilevel list for my headings and figures, boxes and tables. It uses a mix of built in styles Heading 1-3 and Custom styles

I was testing the Figure, Box and Table title style and I spotted an error. All these styles number are setup to restart after Heading 1 style. Which they are doing. But the count is based on the number of paragraphs with any of those styles applied. So that the first instance of a Figure appearing after the first instance of a Box will be Figure 1.2 not 1.1. (Just checked my formatted example document and this is also happening for Heading 2). 

I can see that Word is wanting there to be a logical order of each level only appears after an instance of the previous level but that is not how my list is working. And is not realistic for the types of documents we create.

The behaviour suggests they are linked. However they are not meant to be. 

What I have already done:

Confirmed that the styles are not based on each other

Confirmed that the restart at 1 is set for each level

re-read Shauna Kelly's article on setting up multilevel lists again to ensure I haven't missed anything.

here is a link to my example file

Is there a way to work around this problem? Other than getting the user to use restart at 1. It concerns me that could lead to problems in our documents that are large 200+ pages with multiple authors and content being moved around.

It was previously suggested using Captions but my concern is my user group have a mxi of basic to intermediate level knowledge of word and that they won't update numbering (this happens in the current templates, they often don't update or they get frustrated and think that manually numbering tables, figures and boxes is easier). My goal was to automate numbering. 

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Do NOT use the multi-level list facility for applying captions to the Figures, Tables and Boxes.  Word has a Captioning facility for doing that and in that facility by clicking on the Numbering button, you can format the caption numbers to include the "chapter" number by selecting the Style used to commence each "chapter"

Answer 2

Could you provide more details than NO. Why can't I use this method - help me understand?

Captioning is too simplistic a solution for the documents my organisation needs to create. 200+ page documents with roughly 150 figures, boxes and tables prepared by between 4-8 authors. That is too much to do manually and expect accuracy which we need as these are published on a government website. 

If we ignore the fact they are figures, tables and boxes for a minute. Can anyone explain why the numbering is working the way it is. Is it the limitations of Multilevel lists or is it something I have done in the way I have constructed the list? the incorrect numbering happens with Heading 2 as well. 

I also have a requirement to have these styles linked as I need to have the last three Note Number styles as per image above. They need to restart at 'a' after an occurrence of a table, figure or box. In our current templates we have a series of macros (written 15 years ago) that tries to handle our requirements using field codes and it is highly inaccurate and relies on users to remember to update. We also had to have a macro written to handle the cross referencing. I have been tasked with moving our templates away from a reliance on macros.

Answer 3

You should not use it because as you have discovered it does not work that way that you want it to work.

Answer 4

Word is very picky about the order in which you are allowed to apply multilevel numbered items. Your screen shot indicates that the "Table Title" style is at level 4, which means that you must make use of the three higher levels before you first apply "Table Title." If you don't stick with this hierarchy, numbering will be incorrect. 

You can easily see this for yourself in an example document by setting up heading numbering and applying the built-in headings in the incorrect order. The problem is caused by the list levels in the corresponding multilevel list. See the screen shot below:

As Doug wrote, using a caption with heading numbering will be a safer approach to set up table, figure etc. numbering.

Answer 5

Thank you Stefan for explaining it. No explanation equals no understanding or learning.

I suppose now I need to understand how best to use Captioning in complex documents. I see Captioning as a "as you work" solution not a template solution. I have been Googling but if there were any articles that help explain how to implement captioning in complex templates that would be great. My main concern with captioning is that as I understand it, it is not automatic. The room for user error is too big.