conversion to hard numbering

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Author Message David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 963 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 12:53 pm:    We have a client who wants the Microsoft Word files with the automatic numbering stripped out. They want hard numbers instead. The reason is that automatic numbering can get screwed up. How do I convert my automatic numbering in my specifications to hard numbers? Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 705 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 01:07 pm:    Sometimes, if you remove the document template (*.dot) and replace it with another, such as normal.dot, the automatic numbering becomes fixed. It depends on a lot of factors, including the template. It often doesn't work, though. You could clear the formatting, but then you'd have to insert all the numbers and letters. Sounds like an added service to me. I've not had the automatic numbering get screwed up unless the computer the document is being opened on is screwed up. Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wyancey Post Number: 398 Registered: 05-2005 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 01:10 pm:    Disaable automatic number in the style for each paragraph. Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 706 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 01:16 pm:    Or - copy the sections into Notepad as RTFs. Then copy them back into Word. You should have hard numbers. Still sounds like an added service. David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 964 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 01:29 pm:    Lynn, I tried your suggestion about the copying text into Notepad. It strips off everything including font, line spacing, indents, etc. That procedure is a little too severe and I would have to do a lot of work reformatting. Thanks for the suggestion though. Nathan Woods, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 228 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 01:32 pm:    Can't you just select the numbered text, right click and pick the "Bullets and Numbering" option, and select None, or restart, or whatever you need? David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 965 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 01:33 pm:    Wayne, Your suggestion strips the numbering off but also screws up the indents. I would have to go back and individually hard number each paragraph. I was hoping to find some technique that would "fix" the numbering. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 829 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 02:06 pm:    You can also select all text and then paste it into a new document using Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text. The numbering will remain, but the indents are lost. If you create a couple of styles for the basic paragraphs (PR1, PR2 etc., if you're using Masterspec), it is a pretty rapid process to reassign the styles to the proper paragraphs. Assign the style to the first instance of a paragraph type, then click through the paragraphs using the F4 key (repeat last command). As far as I know, there is no command like "turn auto numbers into manually applied." Ronald L. Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP Senior Member Username: specman Post Number: 607 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 02:14 pm:    To make John's process a little easier, just save the file as a simple text file (.txt). You can do this by clicking "Save as" under the "File" menu, then selecting "Plain text (*.txt)" in the list by "Save as type:" Close the document and reopen the text file. All the formatting will be gone. Then apply the new styles, as John describes, and save the file as a Word document--the same as I described above, but select "Word Document (*.doc)" instead. Melissa J. Aguiar, CSI, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: melissaaguiar Post Number: 63 Registered: 12-2003 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 02:15 pm:    What are version are you using? Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 708 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 03:01 pm:    Would PDFs work? John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 830 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 03:58 pm:    Microsoft Word version 2003, SP3. Richard A. Rosen, CSI, CCS, AIA Senior Member Username: rarosen Post Number: 26 Registered: 08-2006 Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 04:37 pm:    If you "Save As" "Rich Text Format (.rtf)". All text including the paragraph numbering and indents will remain intact. Save the document and rename as a .doc. This will give you a Word document without auto paragraph numbering. I agree with Lynn, the usual reason auto paragraphing gets screwed up is that someone doesn't know how to us it and trys to "tweek it" to work. Anonymous   Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 08:18 am:    Hard numbering ALWAYS ends up looking like this after paragraphs have been removed: 1.1 1.2 1.4 1.5 1.7 Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 712 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 09:33 am:    1. Open the Word document 2. Save it as an *.mhtml Single file Web page 3. Open it using Windows Explorer 4. Save it as a *.mht complete web page 5. In Windows Explorer, right click the file and choose "open in Word". 6. Select All and remove the numbering. Not perfect, maybe, but the best I could come up with. Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wyancey Post Number: 399 Registered: 05-2005 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 10:46 am:    David, Open each style and record the indents and hanging indents and whatever formating you want to retain (such as lines before or after paragrphs). Nobody said it was seamless. There will be some trial and error involved. Once you have created new style for each paragraph, save the template to use with subsequent documents through Style Gallery. Russ Hinkle, AIA, CCS Senior Member Username: rhinkle Post Number: 39 Registered: 02-2006 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 11:02 am:    Seems like this is one of those requests that the requestor thinks will be simple, but it really is not. Verify that a simple QC of the final product and fixing the few numbering errors is not easier than converting the entire spec. Christopher E. Grimm, CSI, CCS, LEED®-AP, MAI, RLA Senior Member Username: tsugaguy Post Number: 120 Registered: 06-2005 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 01:27 pm:    I have heard of sequence numbering (SEQ) fields being used for this type of thing. My initial attempts to make it work have had mixed results. David Lorenzini is da man if you want to try that, I'm sure he could tell us how it works. David E Lorenzini Senior Member Username: deloren Post Number: 71 Registered: 04-2000 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 02:36 pm:    First of all, I don't know why you are giving Word files to a client in the first place, unless you are a subconsultant. One of the perils of using "outline" autonumbering, a la MasterSpec, is that the application of a custom style wipes out all the numbering. That is why I use the SEQ field codes to produce styles (but that is another issue). I suffered for years applying my styles and then manually adding the paragraph numbers back in. I developed some macros for semi-automating the process, but it was still painful. Then one day I came across a macro that has been literally worth hundreds of hours in time savings. I don't know of any system as simple and as quick as this one. But there is a catch. You have to create a macro, something most Word users are loathe to do. The macro is this: Sub ListPlain() Dim lp As Paragraph For Each lp In ActiveDocument.ListParagraphs lp.Range.ListFormat.ConvertNumbersToText Next lp End Sub [Note: Line 2, 3, and 5 should be indented once, and Line 4 indented twice.] Create a Tool Bar button for the macro and you can just press it while the cursor is anywhere in the open document. You won't see anything happen, but the numbers are now "fixed". Now you can apply your style. The best way to see the instantaneous action of this macro is to highlight a portion of the text that includes some paragraph numbers before running the macro. You will see that the numbers are not highlighted. When you run the macro, the numbers become highlighted immediately. Hopefully, this little trick will encourage some users to take more interest in learning how to set up Word macros. David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 966 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 02:52 pm:    David, We are contractually required to give the client our AutoCad DWG files and our spec Word files. I really don't agree to this but have no choice. I will try the macro. Thanks. Dawn'l Burns Member Username: dburns Post Number: 3 Registered: 11-2007 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 03:15 pm:    I just tried David's macro and it worked for me. However, I have one other problem in that I use the 1.01, 1.02 numbering system in lieu of 1.1, 1.2, etc. and have architects I work with that request the switch to that system. David, can the macro be tweaked to eliminate the "zeros"? David E Lorenzini Senior Member Username: deloren Post Number: 72 Registered: 04-2000 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 03:39 pm:    A simple method would be to use Search and Replace. You can search for 1.0 and replace with 1. You then have to repeat with the 2.0 and 3.0. However, to be sure no other text numbers are affeced, you should add some additional options, such as special font size, style, etc. Since the article number always follows a paragraph return, a simple option would be to precede both find and replace boxes with ^p. This will only find the numbering. You can't reverse the process or it will affect some of the subparagraphs as well, unless you use one of the other "options". Dawn'l Burns Intermediate Member Username: dburns Post Number: 4 Registered: 11-2007 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 03:53 pm:    Thank You!!!!! This works like a charm. This is going to save me so much time and frustration. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 831 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 04:00 pm:    Using David's approach, one of the limitations you can use is the paragraph style. The function would then only replace the text when it occurs in a paragraph with the style entered. Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 714 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 04:04 pm:    Search and replace doesn't work when the numbering is automatic, though, because those characters aren't really there. So you'd have to convert to hard numbers first. Don Harris CSI, CCS, CCCA, AIA Senior Member Username: don_harris Post Number: 168 Registered: 03-2003 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 04:12 pm:    This thread is really confusing me. My styles, a la Masterspec, have the numbering embedded in the style. When I have some plain text and embed it in my section, apply a style, that text is numbered correctly and the text below is all renumbered automatically. When I delete an article or subparagraph the Section automatically renumbers itself. If I used hard numbers and deleted Article 1.4, I would have to manually renumber all of the Articles below. Why would I want to do that? P.S. Dave's macro works wonderfully, if you want hard numbers. P.P.S I got this from John a while back...Word will change from leading 0's to no leading 0's, or vice versa, by redefining your style numbering using the drop down in the numbering dialog box. David E Lorenzini Senior Member Username: deloren Post Number: 73 Registered: 04-2000 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 04:13 pm:    Based on John's comment, you could do all three Parts at once using the Style option rather than the paragraph position. Just search for ".0" and replace with a "." while the style is selected from the Format tab at the bottom of the Search and Replace dialog box. Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 699 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 04:45 pm:    David (Axt): I would suggest here if you are required to give the client word files, that you keep a sealed record copy of your files as of the date you turn them over to the Owner. if they want word files, that means they want the option to do stupid things with them and you need to be able to demonstrate that whatever they added -- THEY added. Anne David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 967 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 06:50 pm:    David, Holy bat guano! The damn macro works like a frigg'n charm! Wow! Thank you thank you thank you! I have been pounding my head on the desk trying to figure out a way to not spent the rest of my adult life renumbering the specs! David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 968 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 07:04 pm:    Anne, I did hand automatic numbered specs over the client in Word format. I did however make a hard copy print out and PDF files for the exact reason stated. I don't want anyone screwing something up then blaming me. BTW, I know a specifier that prefers to give her architectural clients "original" Word files. Her theory is that she reduces her liability if the client then further edits them. I am curious on how this would hold up in court.