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 bull...
I was able to "fix" this issue by creating an Organization Assets Library
You'll need admin privileges on Sharepoint and O365, but it's really easy to do.
This allows users to access the template library directly from within Word (File->New tab), which has been a fairly popular update among our users. When a new document is launched from one of the templates via this method, if you go to the developer tab and check the template address, it should show a URL for the common sharepoint location where this is stored. As I mentioned in my previous reply, I was noticing that when people opened the templates from sharepoint their username was being inserted into the file path for the template, in other words it was referring to a locally stored "synced" version of the template, not the real template file. So when another user would go into that document, their computer would be looking for the template location and, when it wouldn't be found because they wouldn't have access to the creator user's locally synced folder, it would default to Normal.dotm and cause all of these problems you're describing. From what I've read, Word will always default back to Normal.dotm if it can't find the real template.
Give it a shot, it's kind of cool anyway, and seems to have eliminated all of the problems we were having - all of my custom Quick Parts, autotext, and other custom xml have been working flawlessly since this change.
One other note - all users will need at least "Read" access to the sharepoint folder that you name as your Org. Assets Library. I just recently had an issue where most people were unable to see certain templates, and it turned out to just be certain documents with incorrect permissions at the sharepoint level. Once I deleted all the unique permissions to default to the folder-level permissions (all org. users can read, only certain users can edit), they showed back up for everyone.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
- Forgot to mention - If you don't have admin privs, another work-around I figured out works is to go into the file that someone launched (so it will have their user name in the template path), and replace it with the sharepoint URL for the actual template: https://(YOUR_ORG_NAME).sharepoint.com/sites/(YOUR_SITE_NAME)/Templates/(TEMPLATE_NAME).dotx
Clip off everything in the URL after the / that precedes "Forms", as this refers to the view, not the actual library path. I had pretty good luck with that fixing the issue as well, but its definitely a reactive approach vs. proactive.cdarrow Interesting theory. What level of admin privileges are you talking about? I have site collection admin for each site but not access to the SharePoint Admin panel which is an IT-only thing (for obvious reasons). Not sure if it's the solution to my issue: I have my documents linked to the template which is stored on the same SharePoint site as all the documents that use it, so the template address is something like:
"https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/bid_name/Submission/Submission%20Templates/Template.dotm"
This doesn't tend to change: in the past I had issues with the template being on my local drive or a server that not everyone had access to, in which case it would constantly default to someone's Normal.dotm and need to be relinked, but ever since I started using the macro which directed it to the SharePoint location it's been fairly solid.
It's the list styles getting messed up that's the issue, and it seems to be caused by multiple authors in the document so it appears there is a conflict somewhere where it's getting bad information or corruption to this. I have found that documents with lots of tracked changes or comments behave even worse, and sometimes won't come good even with refreshing the styles from the template. I have to accept all changes and delete all comments, then refresh.
Yeah, I've had the same issues with tracked changes while coauthoring - not sure if my Org Asset tip will fix that or not, but seemed to generally improve a lot of the style conflict issues I was having, so figured I'd mention it - should be able to get the job done with Site Admin and Office Apps Admin, you'll just need the Sharepoint Online Management Shell (instructions in that link I provided).
I actually read on 3 different websites (but couldn't verify from Microsoft), that track changes is not supported while coauthoring. Obviously it still works (sort of, at least it's "possible"), otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it, but I've noticed things definitely get funky once it gets turned on. I can also verify that List Styles seem to be the most frequent problem (numbered headings most often for me). I can't recall if co-authoring prevents you from being able to edit the same line or same paragraph, but I imagine if it's the latter then editing a list style might affect one of the areas someone else is editing at that moment and cause the conflict? I've resolved to waiting to do any larger formatting changes until after everyone leaves the document, which is inconvenient to say the least and puts me in the hot seat when we're trying to make a deadline. May have to try to implement a "use comment bubbles instead of track changes" policy?
Could be some compounding issues though who knows. List Styles are IMO one of the quirkiest (/most annoying) aspects of MS Word (other than maybe table formatting?), so I can't say I have a firm enough grasp to weigh in - but let me try anyway haha. Reading your comment about the macro set to auto-update styles did make me think of something I read one time - most likely a Greg Maxey or Charles Kenyon post, as that's where I learned 80% of what I know - I believe I remember seeing something say to never leave the auto-update styles checkbox checked. Ever since then, whenever I load a template, I select it while loading, then go back in and deselect it once the updates have taken effect. Can't say I know the what/why, but it may be worth a try to have a second macro turn it back off after initially updating? Just a not very well-founded suggestion, since it seems Microsoft isn't keen on weighing in/helping out. If you're lucky maybe Mr. Maxey or Mr. Kenyon will weigh in one day - every once in awhile I see them active on these threads but I've always been too starstruck to message them! haha.
Good luck!
