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Magic Numbers

When I was in first grade, a magician came to our school, and I've been interested in magic ever since. One thing I've learned is that magic is largely psychological; it depends heavily on what magicians call "misdirection"--getting the audience to look at or think about something that furthers the magician's deception.

This principle can be used in software, too, as I recently discovered when putting together my Author Tools template:

http://www.editorium.com/ftp/authortools.zip

Microsoft Word is notorious for getting automatically numbered lists out of whack, but the Author Tools template handles them quite nicely, mostly because of a little trick--Word's ability to reset the start of a list.

If you've used Word's automatically numbered lists, you've probably noticed that *any* lists in the document are actually part of the *same* list. So, if you make a list like this--

1. Bread.

2. Peanut butter.

3. Pickles.

--and then type some unnumbered text after it, as I'm doing with this paragraph--then the next list you make will look like this:

4. Chihuahuas.

5. Dachshunds.

6. Basset hounds.

The second list is numbered with the first, but obviously it shouldn't be. Fortunately, you can reset the numbering (and apply a numbered style) with this macro:


Sub ListNumberedStart()
With Selection.Paragraphs
.Style = "List Number"
With .First.Range.ListFormat
.ApplyListTemplate .ListTemplate, False
End With
End With
End Sub

If you don't know how to use such macros, you'll find instructions here:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706922855

For ease of use, you might want to attach the macro to a keyboard shortcut, as explained here:

http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1713088939

And now for the magical misdirection: Instead of using the macro to *restart* an existing list, use it every time you need to *start* a new list. If you need to continue an existing list, use Word's automatic numbering feature (which you'd usually use to start a list). Notice that this is exactly the opposite of what you might think should happen. But presto! It works!

By the way, when I talk about Word's automatic numbering feature, I am *not* talking about the buttons on the formatting toolbar, which will cause you no end of trouble. Instead, I'm talking about using paragraph styles that *include* the numbering--in this case, the one named List Number.

Rumor has it that Word wizard and MVP Steve Hudson is helping Microsoft solve their numbering problems for the next release of Word. I sure hope so.

More on Steve's stuff here:

http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Aaron Shepard wrote:

"I came across a bad problem in Word 2004 for Mac. Unlike Windows versions and former Mac versions, this one antialiases all imported graphics, and will even change black-and-white line art to grayscale to do it. That means fuzzy charts and diagrams when printed. It's a scandal.

"The only way to avoid it is to insert art as EPS. On the Mac, that also enables you to place a CMYK graphic!"

Recently on the Word-PC List, Kristen Ebert-Wagner asked how to keep Word from printing graphics--in other words, how to print text only. I suggested that she try importing the Word document into OpenOffice.org Writer and printing from there:

http://www.openoffice.org

Kristen reported:

"It works! OfficeWriter distinguishes between graphics and drawing objects and, furthermore, allows you to include and/or exclude either in printing. Word offers this option for drawing objects only. Thanks--this is a fast, easy solution."

I thought this might be worth passing on for others who are faced with the same problem.

Many thanks to Aaron and Kristen.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

Wondering about the upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2007? You'll find the official explanation here:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx

But if you want the inside scoop, see Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/default.aspx

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