Formatting automatically numbered chapter headings in Word 2019
November 30, 2019 3:15 PM   Subscribe

I'm trying to create automatically numbered chapter headings in a word document that are formatted like you see here (PDF). I want both the automatic numbering and the line/paragraph breaks between "CHAPTER X" and "Title of Chapter" like you see in the linked document.

The problem is that I can't find any option to add line/paragraph breaks after the number label in the list. I want the title of the chapter to actually be a part of the list (not a new paragraph in a separate style) so that it will automatically be added to the table of contents. Does anyone know how to do this? Is it possible? It seems a dumb thing to not be possible.
posted by Kutsuwamushi to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)
 
As far as I can tell (and I formatted 20 books and 15 theses), your table of contents will reflect exactly your headings, so you won't be able to have a heading in your TOC simply called Chapter. You're going to have to decide which one will be manual.

However, for your text headings to look like that, set up your list like you would figures or tables (you can create a new type in there, like Chapter or Box), give it a style linked to top level heading, and put a line break (CTRL enter) after your chapter + number.

When you reach document Final FINAL really FINAL.doxc, copy your TOC into Excel, edit it, and paste as plain text where your dynamic TOC would be.

I think that it's possible whoever formatted that document did the whole thing manually instead of relying on styles and list numbering. It may not be necessary for the organisation you are working for to do it that way. If you are not the candidate, have the candidate ask their supervisor, or check the repository at the library to see what variations are acceptable.
posted by b33j at 4:42 PM on November 30, 2019


What works (for me) is to format each chapter heading as a paragraph belonging to style "Heading 1", let each such paragraph begin with a linebreak (SHIFT+Enter) followed by the chapter title ("the dissertation"), and define the "Heading 1" style as being auto-numbered with a "defined new number format" that inserts the word "Chapter" before the roman numeral. If you further format "Heading 1" paragraphs as centered and remove the list indents, that puts the "chapter X" line centered as well, and you will get roughly what your example looks like.
Word (but I don't know if this is documented behavior) will actually remove the manual linebreak when compiling the table of contents, so you will get "Chapter I. The dissertation" as one line in the TOC.
This is a bit of a hack though, and I agree with b33j that manual editing will give you a cleaner result (and getting the word "chapter" in every chapter heading, but only once in the TOC is not going to happen automatically).
posted by bleston hamilton station at 7:58 AM on December 1, 2019


I think you might want to use multiple heading levels in a custom table of contents.
posted by oceano at 11:31 AM on December 1, 2019


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