Paragraph Numbers
April 6, 2005 – 12:00 pmMicrosoft Word includes the ability to display line numbers in a document, as explained in last week’s newsletter. Unfortunately, it *doesn’t* include the ability to display paragraph numbers. And if you need to display paragraph numbers, that’s a problem. So, here’s a macro that will add a number, formatted as red and hidden, at the beginning of each paragraph:
Sub NumberParas()
Dim para, p
For Each para In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
p = p + 1
para.Range.Select
Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter
Selection.Font.Hidden = True
Selection.Font.Color = wdColorRed
Selection.TypeText Text:=LTrim(Str(p))
Next para
End Sub
If you don’t know how to use such macros, you can learn how here:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=17069228 55
Formatting the numbers as red means they will stand out from the rest of the text on your screen. Formatting them as hidden means you can hide or display them as needed by clicking the Show/Hide button on the Standard toolbar (View > Toolbars Standard). (The Show/Hide button is the one with a paragraph mark–technically a pilcrow–on it.)
To get *rid* of the paragraph numbers, make sure they’re showing. Then use Word’s Find and Replace feature (Edit > Replace) to Find numbers (^#) that are red and hidden and Replace them with nothing.
Or, if the book you’re working on actually needs paragraph numbers for reference in its final form, you could Find numbers that are red and hidden and Replace them with themselves (^&) formatted in some other way, such as superscript and not hidden. Better still, format them all with a character style so you can change them all at will and en masse.
Paragraph numbers may also come in handy if you want to use them as locators in a standalone indexing program such as Cindex–
http://www.indexres.com/cindex.html
–but want to use my DEXter indexing program to automatically embed your entries into a Word document:
http://www.editorium.com/dexter.htm
If that’s what you’re going to do, however, you’re probably better off going with line numbers, which will keep your index more accurate if the book’s pagination changes.
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READERS WRITE
Word and legal expert Donna Payne (www.payneconsulting.com) wrote:
Quick note on the line numbers article. Line numbers in Word will not print next to each row of the table (only one of the rows), nor will it recognize text boxes and text boxes appropriately. I’ve suggested this as a fix to the Microsoft Word product development team.
Thanks, Donna!
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RESOURCES
Palindromes, cryptograms, crossword puzzles, anagrams, poetry, and lots of puzzle-solving tools are available at the National Puzzlers’ League. Besides all of the fun stuff, the site has lots of neat word lists that really ought to be useful for something (editing? indexing? find-and-replace lists?):
While you’re having fun, why not enjoy a chuckle and vote for my nephew, Ryan Hamilton, at Sierra Mist’s Next Great Comic site?
http://www.nextgreatcomic.com/home.php
You can vote ten times a day! All in one go! Thanks!
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THE FINE PRINT
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