Auto paragraph numbering using styles

Question

I'm using Word in MSFT Office 365. I've edited a doc I received from another; doc has auto numbered paragraphs; a colleague has further edited the document, and emailed it back to me.

When the doc appears on our monitors, he can view all auto para numbers; some of the para numbers are missing on my monitor.

I've tried fixes from Professor Google. Any further ideas?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Are all the people who edit the document using the full version of Word for Windows (or Mac)? If someone is using the browser version, note that it has poor support for numbering and may very well break it.

There is also another thing to consider. If you are using style separators, there is a bug which may hide numbering for any heading which is followed by a style separator. This problem is known by Microsoft and it is being investigated. For more, have a look at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/heading-numbering-disappears-after-applying-style-separator-in-word-535fed39-64eb-4ac1-a2c6-48f15dfd5ed5 .

Answer 2

Via File>Options>Customize Ribbon, turn on the display of the Developer tab by locating it in the list on the right hand side and checking the box to the left of it.

Then, on the Developer tab of the ribbon, click on Document Template and make sure that the box for "Automatically update document styles" is NOT checked.

Then, re-open the document as received from your colleague.

By way of explanation, if your colleague used a style for which the definition was different (i.e. no numbering) on your computer, it would, if that box is checked, display in the style from your computer, which would cause the numbers not to be displayed.

That box should normally NOT be checked.

Answer 3

Thank you. I found a workaround by clicking show changes. That worked as far as my needs today.

You are welcome. Since the issue is on Microsoft's radar, hopefully there will be a fix rather soon.

In addition to temporarily enabling Track Changes, another workaround, discussed in the thread at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5720470/ , is to save the document in the older *.doc format.

Answer 4

Thank you. I found a workaround by clicking show changes. That worked as far as my needs today. But yes, there are two pcs in two organizations being used, and my colleague's pc may well have updated Word.