Converting Automatic Numbering to Manual Numbering

Dear Allen, this may be simple for you, but it is an absolute wonder for me (and many others, no doubt!). Your tip saved me not only dozens of hours of work, or alternatively a fortune in hiring someone to do this manually, but it saved me an incredible amount of frustration when Word (for reasons I have still to discover) once again decided to "continue numbering" in places where I had explicitly told it to "restart numbering". Since these are legal texts, the numbering never changes once it has appeared in print!
Thank you so much for this tip!

You are a god. Just saying.

Regina. What you want to do is not easy.

The steps would be:
1. Create a numbered style (or styles depending on your numbering scheme).
2. Apply the styles to your numbered paragraphs. You will then have two numbers against each paragraph. Check that the automatic and manual numbers are the same. I can guarantee that they will differ in places and some editing will be required.
3. Use Find and Replace to delete the manual numbering. You will need to use wildcards to find paragraphs starting with a numeric character then deleting all up to and including the first space (or tab) character. The automatic numbering will be ignored by F&R. The exact “Find what” command string will depend on the format you have used for the manual numbering.

The tedious part will be applying the numbered styles to the relevant paragraphs. Depending on your manual numbering format it may be possible to use Find and Replace, otherwise a macro specific to your scheme might be possible.

Is there a way to do the opposite? I have a manually numbered list in word that I need to convert to a numbered list. Can I do it without having to delete every manually entered number and selecting the Numbering button?

This worked in Word 2016 as well. Thanks, Allen!

You saved my day!

Thank you, this is exactly what I needed!

Yes!! This has saved me so much manual work!

Wow! That was bad to the bone!! I just jipped myself out of hours of billable time but it was so worth it to preserve my sanity. Thank you!!!

Thank you so much. That is great to know. The autonumbering causes all sorts of problems once I put it into a webmerge but it is very helpful to have it working while the document is being produced

Thank you so much for sharing this, you've saved me so much manual work!!!!

Thanks for this piece of wizardry! :-)

It is easier to suspend automatic numbering by unchecking that option under: Word Options - Proofing - AutoCorrect Options... - AutoFormat as you type - Automatic numbered lists. This way, you can selectively use automatic numbering and avoid it when it complicates formatting a section.

You can also copy the list and paste special, no format, and it'll do the same thing.

Saved a lot of time! Worked perfect - Word 2016. Thanks!

one simple tip, copy the text, paste it in excel and then copy of it again and paste in Word, it will be in table format, convert the table to text.

Allen:

Thank you very much for this tip. I have another problem regarding auto-numbering of captions for illustration in a chapter, for example:
Figure 1-1: Interest Rates, Figure 1-2: Returns, etc. The code you listed works great for hard-coding heading levels, but it doesn't seem so work with reference numbering for references such as figures, tables, etc. Any leads for this? I am submitting a manuscript and I have to get figures separated from the text but I want to have something that can hardcode the numbering for the illustrations intact.

Thank you.

John Tjia

Superb!

Worth adding for InDesign users:

Depending on your needs, you can check the "Convert bullets and numbers to text" option in the Import Options panel and the numbering will behave like an ordered list without losing the custom numbering or restarts in the Word document.

Very helpful! Thank you so much!

Worked like a charm. Thank you so much.

This is fabulous! You just saved me a huge headache! Thanks!

It's really helpful for me & has saved me so much time!

Hi Allen Wyatt
Please help me
My use microsoft word 2016
How to give a single paragraph double number
example;
01.abcd
02.efgh
03-04.oprst --------- As in this example
05.jklmn

My email : mt8_mt8@hotmail.com

i am writing a very long ducument with lots of headings, but the first one is always indenting or hanging, what do i do?

Can't thank you enough. Had an urgent contract to deal with and numbering was driving me insane.

What happens to hyperlinked cross-references that refer to numbered paragraphs (e.g. "Refer to § 3.2.1) when auto numbers are converted to manual numbers?

Thank you. That was painless. Automatic numbering can be annoying. Thanks, again.

I am translating a huge patent document with a CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) software - specifically Wordfast Classic. Paragraph numbering was constantly disappearing and driving me mad... This trick solved my problem in a minute!!! Loads of thanks!
Note: do you have some tipping service for sending you a small donation? Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency would be convenient for payment.

Thank you!!!!!!!!

You're my hero for the day (and many days to come)!

Amazing

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!

You have just saved me ENDLESS hours of frustration on a feature that has plagued me for years!!

This saved me..!! Worked perfectly.

Hey -- super slick !!

Thank you

Brilliant!

Thank you! You just saved me hours of work!

Worked perfect. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks so much for this, very helpful.

Absolutely brilliant. This will save me many hours of tedious work and thus much money! You, sir, are a genius!

This is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much.

Hi
Anyone pls help me to convert automatic list to normal list except bullet lists in a document.

Thanks in advance

Thanks.
My doc with table could not be sorted as the auto line numbers, which are my reference and unique to the data in the line were not part of the line

I appreciate.

Thanks a lot!! Saved my time much!

Great. Thank

Saved me again! Can't thank you enough!

Absolutely brilliant! Thank you.

Brilliant. Has saved me a ton of time. Thanks.

My Bad! I had tried the convert the doc to RTF per suggestion (did not work). Loaded the RTF version NOT the Word.doc version. Works like a charm with a native word file. You are the MAN Allen - kudos and thanks!

I follow the steps as noted: VB opens, Immediate window opens, I type the text exactly as directed (ActiveDocument.Range.ListFormat.ConvertNumbersToText) BUT... when I press "Enter" it give me a new line in the Immediate window - does NOT run the command! (Using Word 2013). What am I doing wrong?

Superb

saved me

You're a genius! Thx!!

Thank you so much... you are a god

This was awesome. Quick and very easy. Thank you so much!

Hi,

For me it just moves the cursor una line down.
Any solutions?

Thank you so much in advance.

That's awsome! You r a Gee....!!

Thank you very much. Tremendously helpful.

Thanks a lot! This is great. :)

Allen, I hope there is an answer for this. Suppose I want to have this numbering:
1.Top 1
1.1 sub 1.1
1.2 sub 1.2
...
2.Top 2
2.1 sub 2.1
2.2 sub 2.2
...

WinWord does not provide Topic-Subtopic number inheretance.

Anyway to achieve it?

Thank you in advance.

This quick fix worked great for me! I had to quickly renumber 600+ auto numbers to be used in a mailmerge. Beautiful! I am adding it to my bag of tricks.

Great worked for me!!

Extremely helpful, thanks!

The ConvertNumbersToText command is not selective and will convert all types of numbering and bulleting. At times it is desirable to only convert or remove one type of numbering, for example a document may have satisfactory outline numbering but chaotic list numbering.

The macro ConvertOrRemoveNumbering will convert numbering and/or bullets to text or alternatively remove them for all selected paragraphs (to select the whole document press CTRL + A). Set the values of IncludeOutline, IncludeList and IncludeBullets to True or False as required. Also set RemoveSw to False to convert to text or True to remove numbering and/or bulleting.

However, if the style of a paragraph has numbering or bulleting attributes then re-applying the style will re-introduce numbering or bulleting and if the numbering had been converted rather than deleted then two numbers will appear. If you don’t want this to happen then you need to remove the numbering from the styles after the conversion to text. The RestoreStyles macro will re-apply styles for the selected paragraphs.

Removing and re-applying can be used to advantage where a document has a messy combination of style, list numbering and bulleting. It will give a “clean” copy that has only numbering and bulleting from styles.

Sub ConvertOrRemoveNumbering()
Dim j As Long
Dim jcount As Long
Dim k As Long
Dim nP As Long
Dim aRange As Range
Dim bRange As Range
Dim aPara As Paragraph

' ---- set constants for type of numbering -----
Const IncludeOutline = True
Const IncludeList = True
Const IncludeBullets = False

' ---- RemoveSW = True to remove, False to convert to text ---
Const RemoveSW = False

Set aRange = Selection.Range
Set bRange = Selection.Range
jcount = 0
' --- paragraphs in reverse order to preserve numbering ---
k = aRange.Paragraphs.Count
j = k
Do
Set aPara = aRange.Paragraphs(j)
nP = aPara.Range.ListFormat.ListType
If nP = 1 Then
If Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.ListParagraphs.Count <> 1 Then nP = 0
End If
If nP = (IncludeList And (nP = 1 Or nP = 3)) Or _
(IncludeOutline And nP = 4) Or (IncludeBullets And (nP = 2 Or nP = 5)) Then
aPara.Range.Select
If RemoveSW = True Then
Selection.Range.ListFormat.RemoveNumbers NumberType:=wdNumberAllNumbers
Else
Selection.Range.ListFormat.ConvertNumbersToText NumberType:=wdNumberAllNumbers
End If
jcount = jcount + 1
End If
nextPara:
j = j - 1
Loop Until j < 1

bRange.Select
Selection.Start = Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.Start
If RemoveSW Then
MsgBox jcount & " numbers/bullets removed"
Else
MsgBox jcount & " numbers/bullets converted to text"
End If
End Sub


Sub RestoreStyles()
Dim aPara As Paragraph
For Each aPara In Selection.Range.Paragraphs
aPara.Style = ActiveDocument.Styles(aPara.Style)
Next aPara
End Sub

10x!

I love you!!! This tip has saved me so much time!