Heading numbers change

[mel9521j]

My heading numbers change without reason (5, then 2). I’ve looked at the forums and guide book, removed direct formatting, checked my styles, etc. I’m using Tools - Heading Numbering since Tools - Chapter Numbering is not available.

example chapter headings.odt (17.3 KB)

Version: 25.2.0.3 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: e1cf4a87eb02d755bce1a01209907ea5ddc8f069
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10 X86_64 (10.0 build 19045); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-GB
Calc: CL threaded

[ajlittoz]

You have mixed manual numbering and automatic numbering.

The first headings 2-4 are indeed styled Heading 1 but automatic number has been eliminated with Bksp and replaced by explicitly typed numbers. This Bksp trick is used to get unnumbered headings, usually at start of a book like Acknowledgements, Preface or Introduction. Such unnumbered headings are ignored by the counter.

Your “Happy” heading is back at “full auto”. The counter will show the next available value, i.e. 2 because “1 Heirship” was the last auto heading.

The moral of the story is: in any document, be consistent. Either you rely on automatic features, or you do everything manually. Don’t mix both; they conflict.

[mel9521j]

How do you view this stuff?! Is it the Style Inspector? Your informative answers make me quote Arthur C. Clarke often.

How do I fix this? I didn’t realize I’d done it. Resting numbering, removing style and reapplying, and removing direct formatting aren’t working.

[EarnestAl]

@mel9521j

How do you view this stuff?

One way might be to select the entire heading paragraph, if the number is included in the selection then it has been typed in, as below

@mel9521j

How do I fix this?

I think the easiest way is to click in each heading, press Ctrl+0 to change the paragraph style to Body Text then press Ctrl+1 to change it back to Heading 1 except it will have the unaltered style, i.e. with the numbering. Delete any manually entered numbers and spaces between the number and the heading. Existing headings that did not have a number entered manually will not need altering.