Help with MS Word

[Munish]

Hi can anyone help me with a problem I am having with MS Word? Punky, you're most likely to know, but just in case anyone else might be able to help I am posting this publicly.

I am working on a very large document (in excess of 1,500 pages). Anyway it's go to that point that the numbering and bullet points are starting to cause difficulties.

Specifically, everytimes I use a number sequence (a. b. c. etc) and put bullet points between them, the numbering sequence screws up so, for example it looks like, a. * a. * a. b. c. * a. b. c. etc.

This is total nightmare because the number sequence is not listed as restarted but a continuing sequence. Before I got round it by rewriting text, but this time it is not working.

I am figuring, the document is so large know that my laptop cannot deal with this. I am using Word 2007, but I will give 2003 a go. The functionality of 2007 is more user friendly and commands are faster than earlier versions, which is great for smaller documents, but I get the feeling it has come at the sacrifice of formating functionality. It may also be my computer has insufficent memory to deal with this.

If there is no answer does anyone at least know any stable programme for very large documents that are full of cross references, bullet points and number sequences, and has a table of contents function?

This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but if some know anything you'd be a life saver.

[punky]

So the number sequences get reset every time you add a bullet point?
It could be because they might be mutually exclusive... I.e. you have to break out of a sequence to start a bullet. If you double carriage-return, that ends the sequence, doesn't it? 2 x shift-returns might do it. There might also be a way to nest the bullets inside the sequence properly.

I don't have word on my work machine at the moment, but in a bit i'll be using another one that does have word (albeit a bit old), but i'll give it a go.

[DebbieM]

Have you tried formatting bullets and numbering from the main task bar. You can actually format your own list style therefore telling the document how you want the bullets listing.

Might be worth posting a dummy document with the issues you are having and then we can play around with it - so much easier than trying to explain.

Hope this helps.

Debs

[Munish]

Thanks Punky.

Generally, when you double carriage it does end the automatic numbering, but you can continue it no problems later down the document if you wish, including with bullet points within it. I have one set of numbering going through the whole document to identify the chapters, another set of number of identify sections within the chapters and then many bullet points within those.

The problem just seems to have started recently and on this one document, and really started after I exceeded 1,400 pages.

in addition, when you enter a bullet point (apart from screwing up the number sequences) it automatically continues from previously bulleted text and the separation function is no longer responsive.

However, that is really only a minor problem and does not affect the presentation of the document. It's numbering that is doing my nut. My feeling is, the document is just to large for this laptop to handle.

Anyway, my trial period for Word 2007 runs out this month, so I will be using Word 2003 from another laptop next week and will be interested to see if I can resolve the problems on that programme.

[Munish]

Thanks Debs,

The bullets and numbering function on the taskbar is no longer responsive in Word 2007 with this document. I have to type "*" and space bar, or "-" space bar (etc, depending on the style I wish to use) and then the bullet will appear as I want it to. But it still screws up the numbering sequence.

Will leave the bulleting on my to do list for now and see if I can get working with Word 2003.