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I received a note from a reader who misunderstood and was concerned by references in my last post about the interaction between Word's outline numbering feature and the Windows Registry -- so I wanted to clarify...and reassure.
First and foremost ... please take a deep breath and relax. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for any user of Word to have anything to do with the Windows Registry in order to use outline numbering successfully. This note is only for those who are curious about the underlying reason why some behavior of that feature might be different than they expect.
It's simply that some of the formatting you do to an outline numbered list might exhibit some 'control issues' because that formatting information is stored on the system level (i.e., in the registry). To steal a line from those great Hebrew National hot dog commercials of years ago ...this feature just "answers to a higher authority" than most of the formatting you do in a Word document.
It's as if I told you that Jimmy acts the way he does because he was raised by wolves ;-) No one expects you to act like a wolf around Jimmy ... but if you understand why that's happening, you'll know that to get along with Jimmy you'll need to just understand that he does some things differently than you might like. ... and knowing why he behaves differently is reassuring to some people. It certainly is to me.
So, to reiterate: settings applied in the Customize Outline Numbered List dialog box will will take precedence over any workarounds you try to do to its settings through other Word features. (For example, if you try to change an outline numbered paragraph's indents on the ruler bar, those indents won't stick. You need to change them in the Customize Outline Numbered List dialog box.) The solution is simple! Instead of fighting it -- understand it, and use the feature designed for the task. Just use the Customize Outline Numbered List dialog box to change any formatting that can be changed there. Your outlines will behave, they'll work beautifully, and you can spend less time messing with documents and more time on your actual life. Simple as that.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Posted by Stephanie
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