Forum Discussion
Numbering and bullets in Word docs keep disappearing
When working as a team on Word files within SharePoint, I constantly have problems with things like heading numbering disappearing (or changing from numbers to bullets), bullets going missing or bullets turning into numbers. From what I can see, the custom list styles in the documents go missing. Other formatting things happen, like table column widths messing up. I can fix it all, PDF it, save and close, and when I open the Word doc again it's all gone haywire once more.
I was always approaching this from a Word bug perspective, but maybe it's something I'm doing wrong in regard to SharePoint. Essentially, this is my workflow:
1. Create Word template.
2. Create documents from Word template (bid response schedules, one for each).
3. Upload all files to SharePoint.
At this point, the template resides on my computer, in my OneDrive folder. As I understand it, this shouldn't be an issue because unless people play around with what template the document is linked to, it shouldn't change. However, often I found that the template had reverted back to "Normal". So, I started saving the template in a location on SharePoint (along with the documents) and making sure it was linked to it.
When the document styles go haywire, to fix it all I need to do is link back to the template and update the styles. I have a macro that has the location of the template hard coded, and it links the document to the template, updates the styles, then turns off the checkbox again. (Note: I always make sure the "update styles from template" is kept off). Whether the template is on my computer or on SharePoint, once the styles start messing up they will continue to keep messing up, so putting the template on SharePoint doesn't seem to have fixed it.
I'm outlining this process because all the forum posts I've found seem to treat SharePoint more as a space where templates are uploaded and people use the "New" button to create and then save documents straight into SharePoint from Templates that are uploaded into the site library. This is obviously not how we are using it: these Teams sites are created per project, we do our submission and then move on. I'm the only one creating documents and other people contribute to them.
Is there something I'm doing fundamentally wrong and that's why these issues happen? If not, has anyone seen this issue and worked out what causes it?
I second AndrewB's response. I've used Shauna Kelly's guide for years and it always works fine on a local document. I also instruct all my users to access the Word documents only via the desktop app. In fact I have confirmed via screenshare that, with a fresh document set up correctly via Shauna's guide, with a template stored on a shared company server (NOT on a SharePoint), and with two of us in the document simultaneously, edits to bulleted lists, headings, or numbered lists, result in instability. One user may see the correct bullets and numbering on his/her screen while the other does not, and as the other user attempts to repair, the first user may lose the bullets and numbers on his/her screen. The thread is old but persistent because the issue has yet to be addressed, despite being brought to Microsoft's attention for at least 4 years.
The numbering problems are more than 30 years old. However, posting about problems here does not bring them to Microsoft's attention.
If you want, you can attach a sample document here with such problems and I or someone else will take a look at the problem. It may well be that coauthoring and multilevel lists do not work. I do not know. It may be, too, that although you did everything you thought was needed, the list is not stable.
What does bring the problem to Microsoft's attention? I've submitted the issue via their feedback portal many times over the years, as have other users. I'm aware that posting here does not bring it to their attention. I'm aware that the numbering struggles with MS Word have been persistent for a long time.
Coauthoring and multilevel lists do not work. I do know. I've been working on this specific issue for four years and tried dozens of solutions. As AndrewB says, I've used Shauna Kelley's guide for years and it always works on a local document.
If you really want to verify that multilevel lists do not work, you can certainly build your own template with custom headings and numbered lists and bulleted lists, attach it to a document stored on SharePoint, create some headings and lists and bullets in that document, and access it simultaneously with multiple user accounts. I cannot give you my company's corporate template, but even if I could, you'd have to repeat that specific procedure to observe the issue we're talking about.
Thank you. Yes, I used Shauna Kelly's article to set up my auto-numbered styles (lists and paragraph styles). This problem does not occur when I bring documents down and work on them locally. And it happens inconsistently. In other words, some documents are problematic, while others are not. Sounds like it's just one of the headaches we will have to deal with.
I've learned to tell my team not to worry about it and not to try to "fix" it. I wait until everyone is out of the doc, then use the organizer to reimport the problematic list and paragraph styles. It does result in extra work, especially when a new contributor joins a project and does something like type over many fields because they think the information is missing. Then I get to go back and reinsert the fields or rebuild cross-references, etc.
To clarify, this happens for all dynamic items, such as figure and table caption numbers, cross-references, doc property fields, and auto-numbered elements.
Thanks for you response.
I realize this is an old thread that somehow surfaced again.
Templates stored on SharePoint do not act the same as when stored on a computer.
Bullets and numbering seem to often get broken when the document is edited in the online app. Try to only have it edited in the desktop application.
Bullets and numbering, to be stable, must be tied to styles as set forth in How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Ribbon Versions of Word by Shauna Kelly. See also Automatic Numbering in Word - my 4-page pdf.
I have a similar problem.
I am working on the Microsoft App on Mac using SharePoint, together with a Windows device (I’m not sure if this could be the issue).
Suddenly, the chapter and subchapter numbers disappeared from the entire file, even though they were correctly displayed until a few days ago.I've been setting my docs up according to Shauna's guide for a decade or more and they will work fine (more or less) in a local environment, but as soon as you introduce SharePoint to the mix and multiple authors it all goes haywire. By now I have a great set of macros that are available in a custom toolbar and the templates themselves, which is why I keep the template on SharePoint too, that will essentially do some version of a "tick/untick".
I have no technical knowledge of the MS Word code but I feel like the co-authoring stuff was built for the online version (which might be entirely new code?) and somehow shoe-horned into the desktop app, and it just doesn't play well with the ancient list style code. The documents can behave themselves for a while, but for instance just before review time now I have 7 people in an 80-page document and it's absolutely blown up: refreshing styles won't fix everything. It won't be until I get everyone else out of the document and run it that it will all settle down.
List styles seem pretty flaky to begin with: I've often had the situation where I've gone in to edit the numbering or indents of the styles in a list style and when I press ok the list style loses all the linked paragraph styles, so I have to go back in and assign them all again.
Numbering is tricky, and finnicky, too! You need to follow Shauna's guidelines. You may want to read John McGhie's articles. It may be that co-authoring busts it, too.
I've done some work using [Quick] Style Sets with numbering as well. Download: [Quick] Style Sets with MultiLevel Numbering attached to paragraph styles and article: [Quick] Style Sets can include multilevel numbering attached to styles. I do not know whether that will assist but they might make for an easier repair. The funny thing is that these sets do not hold list styles.
I never edit these documents in the online app, which I view as inferior. I know it can mess up automatic numbering. My opinions on various Word offerings in a pdf.
I was wondering if anyone has been experiencing Cross References number temporarily disappearing from the document while co-authoring.
We have a client with a large document (700+ page). All the text paragraphs are numbered (x.xxx). I saw on screen the document not showing the results of the cross reference ( in the document you could see 'see paragraph where' - there where two spaces it should have read 'see paragraph 2.345 where'). If you select the text and press F9 then the cross reference is re-displayed.
When being shown this on screen I could see the number re displaying (on pressing F9) but then I saw it disappear again a few seconds later.
Using the option to highlight all Field codes text does no help because the field code is returning nothing so nothing is highlighted in grey.
The client is now inserting two XX and highlight in yellow before each cross reference so other users know there is a valid cross reference it just is not visible.
This is definitely happening when 2-3 people are coauthoring. I have no confirmation of it happening when the document is not being co-authored.
This is driving the users round the bend as they are trying to check all the cross references prior to publication.
Has anyone else experienced this behavior?
MS Office version being used is: 2406 (Monthly Enterprise channel)
Yes I also have this issue. I have a macro that updates all of the fields in a document and that makes them all appear again however it's irritating as they appear and disappear at random. I see it mostly with figures and tables, where the caption will just say "Table:" without the number.
AndrewB_33335 For tables, I heard there were a few word updates KB 3213656 and KB 4011039 that caused dissappearing issues and removing them fixed the issues. But if you have a macro, you might add an export at the end to a pdf or doc or rtf format to freeze the content. Word docs can be so painful for these issues.
nikkipike Yes, it happened for us when building RFP documents for tenders. It was mostly title styles and numbering that kept disappearing with some editors and would come back when document owners reviewed the doc. Apparently users had conflicting settings (word cache overgrown, autosave disabled for some or enabled for other, update normal.dot enabled vs disabled for other, etc).
For us, there were 3 possible fixes (We used 1 and 2 below, to fix this word issue):
1) Everyone enabled autosave, to avoid some users with autosave overwriting text before other users without autosave had saved their edits. Note: We cleaned word caches in File > Options, for some users where cache sizes of 2-3Gb prevented autosave.
2) Removing auto-update for TOC or styles:
- For TOC, you can go into TOC > Modify > then for each TOC 1, TOC 2, TOC 3..., remove auto-update to avoid one user applying a TOC style and updating it by accident.
- For titles, you can go into the Styles gallery, then Modify > Remove auto-update for H1, H2, H3, H4...3) The most radical 'fix' is to lock the styles for editors, so that they cannot change the table of contents or styles. You can do this in tab File > Info > Protect document > Restrict editing > Formatting restrictions > Check 'Limit formatting' > Settings > Select styles TOC1/2/3/4... > Restrict permission.
AndrewB_33334 I have the same issues. Some documents give me grief and others do not. I've noticed:
- Paragraph styles that suddenly act like they are mapped to a different list style. For example, my bullets will suddenly return my appendix auto-numbering.
- List styles will disappear altogether.
- Figure numbers and cross-references will disappear but can be displayed with an F9, only to disappear again.
As you've pointed out, reapplying the template fixes the problems, but I've discovered doing that when there are multiple people in the doc makes the doc increasingly unstable. I wait until everyone is out and then I update the styles based on the template.
I do not have an answer. I am very frustrated by this and wonder if our clients encounter these issues when they look at the Word docs we send them. We have some that require source and not PDF.
JessicaDavis3 My sense is that it's a SharePoint problem: if you bring the document off SharePoint and make sure that it's fine, it will stay fine from there on. However I haven't had the will to test that theory. After all these years I'm guessing that multiple authors is what causes the issues, perhaps with clashes in syncing using the desktop Word app. This is perhaps why MS pushes the terrible web version so much. For Excel we actually recommend people work in the web version if they want to co-author as it's much more stable and less prone to conflicts, however the web version of Excel is much better than Word, at least for simple Excel documents that just use the basic features.
AndrewB_33335 Yes, this is certainly a SharePoint issue. That's the point, though - Microsoft promotes SharePoint as a collaborative environment permitting multiple, simultaneous authors. But this template conflict issue ruins the entire endeavor. Even if the document (.docx) and the template (.dotx) are both on SharePoint, you can't point the document to the SharePoint location to find the template. Even if all users synchronize the SharePoint directory and point to their local version and un-check "automatically update document styles" in the Templates and Add-ins dialog, there are still conflicts. Even if you store the template external to SharePoint and point all users to a local drive, there are still conflicts. The only solution is to reapply, reapply, reapply the template over and over and over again until it de-synchronizes once more. It's a laughable oversight.
I am facing the same problem and it is very frustrating.
AndrewB_33334 When you use a shared document, it does happen that the doc updates the styles when the user signs in because his Normal template is different, the doc template is unknown to the user’s word, or the document proofing options allow for autoformatting. I tried turning off the autoformat feature in proofing, saving a new normal template or saving the doc theme.
But it seems that the only protection to style swapping is to turn on document protect in File > Info > Protect the doc > Restrict editing > Limit formatting then the two checkboxes at the bottom to restrict style swapping and restrict quick style changes. Don’t enable the 3rd checkbox for autoformatting. Then the next dropdown, no need to restrict more editing. Then enforce protection with a password.I'm experiencing the same problem.
When I share a document using Sharepoint and only give other authors "review" rights the formatting drops from the document.
This has been a problem for years (as evidenced by this thread). Is it really so hard for Microsoft to fix their bugs?
- I encourage everyone to submit feedback to MS Word to get this issue on their radar. From some MS Word installations, you can submit feedback directly in the application by going to Help > Feedback. For me, I had to use the online version of the software and click the smiley face in the upper-right-hand corner of the interface. (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-give-feedback-on-microsoft-365-2b102d44-b43f-4dd2-9ff4-23cf144cfb11#:~:text=From%20your%20app%2C%20go%20to%20Help%20%3E%20Feedback.,From%20your%20app%2C%20go%20to%20File%20%3E%20Feedback.).
Same issue here. This does not seem to be fixed.
I am currently working in a project environment with 2 other companies. Hence this topic can get political...
Documents are shared over a Teams group. I am editing the document in the Word desktop app. I don't have any access to the template.Pernille-Eskebo : please have a closer look on this issue. Collaboration across multiple companies supposed to be one of the core functionalities.
jg_ch_ad sorry to hear you've also been having this issue. FYI, this is a community forum, so you won't find anyone that actually works for Microsoft here. Recommend submitting something to the official feedback forum. If you have some sort of shared file space among you and your partners' firms that is accessible to everyone involved, I would try saving a copy of your template file in that shared space and then opening the developer tab in your document(s), opening document template, and inserting the path to that shared location as the document template. Check the path and make sure it's a common location that is visible to everyone using it (you can still put restrictive permissions on the template itself to prevent others from editing, so long as it is at least readable to everyone). That has worked well for me, but still have to avoid doing large scale formatting changes while track changes is on and lots of people are in the file. It also allows anyone to quick open up the developer tab/document template window and toggle on the "automatically update document styles" box, click ok, wait a second, open it back up and uncheck the box (for some reason that I don't understand, you want to leave it unchecked) - that should make everything go back to normal in one click (technically like 8 clicks). Another thing you can try is completely redoing any of your custom multi-level lists and bulleted list styles from scratch in your template, just in case there is something a little buggy in there. Probably the biggest thing I've found though is that there is no point in doing any formatting while track changes is enabled and/or while coauthoring. So generally toward the end of a deliverable, once track changes are cleaned up, I ask everyone to kindly bug off out of the file, reapply the template styles, and send. Not ideal, but a means to an end.
Best of luck!
We are experiencing the same problem on macOS. None of the hints in this threads has resolved the issue for us. The main issue is that the numbering template disconnects from the headings – again and again. Unbelievable that Microsoft does not fix the problem in several years.
- Experiencing the same issue on macOS. None of the suggestions in this thread have solved it. Frustrating that Microsoft hasn't fixed this problem despite its persistence for years.
It's inconceivable to me that such a basic feature can remain broken for this long when using Microsoft's own software with its own collaboration system, however if you look for the issue the only references you'll find to it are on forums like this which are only user to user. My guess is that they simply lack the institutional knowledge to fix something as old as Word when it doesn't play well with a newer system. I'm guessing it will never be fixed as they're pushing their web version which will suit the requirements of 80% of people.
- Having the same issue here. I'm on version 2308.
I tried saving my .dotx locally before creating the .docx from it, and it still happens. The "Automatically update document styles" option is unchecked.
My workaround is to re-attach the dotx, enable the "Automatically update document styles", then disable the option again. Pretty annoying.
I've had it happen to a file that only I ever opened. I always open it from my synced SharePoint folder; I never open through Teams or through the web app.aleblancnuv Thanks for keeping the issue alive. Our only hope now is that Microsoft sees how prevalent and catastrophic this issue is.
Your solution is workable, but it's only really effective when there are no other users in the document. Otherwise, in my experience, the template attachment loads asynchronously for the different users and the document is unstable. You can always get things set back to normal at the end; but in the meantime, the document is an unworkable mess for everyone actively participating in it. Of course, this discourages users from applying the styles and pre-loaded content (like tables, callout boxes, etc.) that you so painstakingly generated in your template! Simultaneous, multi-user collaboration is the lynchpin of SharePoint. If you can't keep a document stable, while also using a template, a major function of SharePoint collapses. This is especially dismaying and embarrassing when you're part of a large organization (hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of users) and you'd like to create organization-wide standards (which I have!), but you have to tell alllll of your users, "Now, bear in mind, this will look like total chaos while you're actually using the document..."
- The problem still exists with Word version 2303 and it continues to impact my team even when only 3 people are collaborating on the same document.
Someone in our organization identified the following work around. It can be used periodically to prevent problems. It seems to work, but I have not done any controlled testing.
Clear the Microsoft Office cache by deleting all files in the following directory:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache\0
For me, this folder has only one folder, also named "0" (zero), which holds more folders and all the cache files. I have not cleared the MS Office cache in several months and the folder currently contains over 355,000 files and uses over 10 GB of storage. The most recent cache folder is 3 GB and has 64,000 files. Another folder has almost 250,000 files and uses 8 GB of storage. All the other folders are between 1 KB and 2-3 MB. Almost all the cache files have date modified timestamps from within the past 2 weeks.
This seems like way too many files for Word to manage without problems. FYI everyone, I've been sleeping around with some other threads and found a similar discussion on the Community forum (too many MS forums!!) that has a bunch of Word MVPs on it confirming what nikkipike first reported here - this is a known issue that MS is working on, and thinks they at least partially fixed in recent updates (definitely not fully, since I've had the issue since).
Best practices for living with this issue while they work on it appear to be
#1 trying to prevent people from using Word Online (although there appears to be no way to programmatically restrict this, or as I say, no way of idiot-proofing!),
#2 avoid modifying linked headings while coauthoring with tracked changes on.
#3 use a macro or otherwise train people how to reapply styles from template.
#4 When all else fails (and likely will), Drink.
Well, my colleague and I updated to the latest version of Word (2210, Build 15726.20174) and saw no improvement in behavior. As soon as he entered the document and began making changes to the headings and bulleted lists, we saw indentations, numberings, table captions, cross-references seem to change at random. I confirmed again that he and I were both pathed to the same template and that "Automatically Update Document Styles" was unchecked in the Templates and Add-ins dialog box.
I wrote a macro to re-attach the template, override the document styles, and then toggle that checkbox off again. That partially improved matters, but the list styles don't seem to overwrite completely. I added content to the macro to individually overwrite each list style, and confirmed that it does work when the working file is stored locally on my machine, but it does not work when the file is stored on SharePoint. I get an error that the macro can't find the file, which I suspect is due to the file having a web address for a path (e.g., https://.....documentname.docx). So, my next attempt will be to write some code to sequentially select all instances of the heading styles, 1-9, all the custom bulleted list styles, and all the custom numbered list styles, and reapply both the list style and the paragraph style to each element.
This is obviously a band-aid on a bullet hole. SharePoint is specifically meant for this sort of multi-user collaboration, yet it fails catastrophically when multiple users collaborate in a document! When something is this broken in the software, what's the mechanism for raising it to Microsoft's attention?
- With respect to the built in List / Bullet style in Word I never use these and try and keep people away from using these styles as they randomly seem to change to what they were when last used (perhaps in a completely different document) you updated. I also keep them away of the bullet and numbered buttons on the Paragraph group in the Home tab.
I always create a set of new paragraph styles for list numbers and bullets and then I then list together in an outline number list. I think make sure the Styles pane is updated to list the styles they should be using. This way the reset styles works as expected.
Not sure this is of any help.
