OpenOffice numbering

[John D Lamb]

On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 11:30 +1000, Karl Auer wrote:
> Can anyone help me with autonumbering in Open Office?
> 
> I have a beautifully numbered document. I want to add a new numbered
> paragraph. I position the cursor at the end of the para, and hit enter.
> 
> What I am expecting is a new para, with the same style as the previous
> one, with the next number in sequence from the previous one.
> 
> What I get is a new para, with the same style as the previous one, but
> the numbering has restarted!
> 
> It doesn't make any sense that I can see; is there some setting I have
> missed?

This is a tricky problem. Word processors are not good at handling
lists. OpenOffice is a lot better than Word, but I can’t guarantee all
of what I suggest will work.

The first thing I would try is not to append at the end of the list.
Copy the text for the last list entry. Go back one item and create a new
entry. Use paste special to paste the unformatted text into the new
entry and apply any formatting you need. When you have done this you
should have two apparently identical last list items. Add new items
between these and delete the last item when you are finished.

If you want to combine two lists but keep the style of the first one,
the following may work. Select the first list and use Format, Styles and
Formatting (F11). Select the list styles. If no style is selected, use
the rightmost button to create a new list style from your selection. Now
select both lists, and press the toolbar numbering button twice to
renumber the lists. The numbering should now be correct, but the style
will be gone. Click on your newly-created list style while the combined
list is selected and you should have a single list in the same style as
before. You may have to do a little extra work if there where unnumbered
lines or more than one level on numbering within the original list.

-- 
JDL