Chapter (Outline) Numbering mangled/reset! :(

[MMHein]

Hi,

I'm about to write my master thesis, and somewhere after the first third of it, the chapter number got reset, so any new chapter, subchapter, etc. is starting from '1' instead from the most recent one, eg. 2.3.1 or 3.

How can I fix this?

- Martin

[Lorinda]

Hi Martin, welcome to the forums at trinity.

I can't give you an immediate answer, but I would imagine it means checking on your page styles or the like. I would suggest that you look at some wiki articles that may be helpful:

Creating a Table of Contents
Using Page Styles

If you are using a Master Document, the articles on Master Documents may be of help as well.

If those articles don't provide the answer you need, please post back with what you've tried and we'll take it from there.

Lorinda

[Baggypants]

I've seen a couple of bugs like this opened in bugzilla. In both cases it had related to importing a word document and was also apparent in OpenOffice.

Also its worth noting that the Paragraph styles and the Bullets and Numbering styles, there are options to restart numbering

Format > Styles and Formatting > right click on style > modify > Numbering > Restart at this paragraph.

[doctype]

I had my own very long string of problems with chapter numbering for scientific papers, both with OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice; and I may say that it confused me more than with other word processors (hello, Redmond!).

Here is what I learned:

NEVER use "Format > Bullets and Numbering..." directly.
NEVER format numbering in any paragraph style directly.
If you have done one or both of the above, undo it.
USE ONLY "Tools > Outline Numbering..." and format numbering, levels and associate them there with paragraph styles (Headings).
And, finally and naturally, use these paragraph styles (Headings) for structuring your document.

That way, my documents usually look nice & the TOC either.

Another hint: If you want to save any outline numbering configuration, don't bother with the nice looking Format > Save As... button in the Outline Numbering window – it doesn't work (all saved data will be lost between sessions). I never found out if that is a bug or simply a complete other feature which I don't understand. If you want to preserve your chapter numbering config, you have to make a template. And as that is another nice story altogether, I suggest to begin with the (in most cases quite excellent) NeoOffice User help (Text Documents > Formatting Text Documents > Templates and Styles).

EDIT: Minor correction.

[MMHein]

Thanks to all!

It worked!

Never ever use Numbering in the document directly.

[Lorinda]

I added doctype's tips about numbering to the wiki page on Table of Contents I linked to above.

I also added a link to this thread?

Has anyone been successful in saving Numbering formats from the Outline Numbering window? Or should I add the warning about that the the TOC article as well?

[doctype]

[Lorinda]

Thanks for finding the OOo Issuezilla report. I have yet to successfully search Issuezilla!

I have added a warning to the appropriate page.

Lorinda

[doctype]