Series Labels

WJ,

   I agree with Barb. Her reply is much more succinct than mine, but details follow.

   If I understand your example correctly, I believe you can use the H: numbering series for all of the paragraph formats you've shown. Furthermore, I suspect that the approach I describe below will reduce the number of paragraph formats you need to maintain. It will be much easier to explain the approach if I knew the tags of your paragraph formats. Since I don’t, I will make some up for the sake of the discussion. In particular, the tags I use below are:

Level1: first level section
Level2: second level section
Level3: third level section
Level4: fourth level section
Alpha: lettered paragraphs within sections at any level
Number: numbered paragraphs within sections at any level
TwoPart: paragraphs identified with two-part numbers

I assume you are currently using autonumbers for the first four of these tags that look (ignoring  tabs or spaces) something like:

Level1: H:<n+>
Level2: H:<n>.<n+>
Level3: H:<n>.<n>.<n+>
Level4: H:<n>.<n>.<n>.<n+>

These autonumbers recognize that an autonumber series can refer to several counters. In each autonumber that uses a particular series, each counter can be reset, incremented, or unchanged, and it can be displayed or not. All counters that are not mentioned are reset to 0.

The meaning of the above, therefore is:

Level1: Add 1 to the value of the first counter in the H series and display the result as an Arabic numeral. Reset all other ounters to 0. Since all counters are initially set to 0, the first Level1 paragraph therefore displays as 1.

Level2: Display the unchanged value of the first counter followed by a period, add 1 to the second counter and display it as an Arabic numeral. Reset all other counters to 0. Note that the second counter in the first Level2 paragraph following a Level1 paragraph will have the value 1 because the Level1 paragraph reset the second counter to 0.

Level3: Display the period-separated unchanged values of the first and second counters followed by another period. Then increment the third counter and display it.

Level4: Display the period-separated unchanged values of the first three counters followed by another period. Then increment the fourth counter and display it.

If you use the A: series for the Alpha paragraph, then there is no relationship between its autonumbers and those in the Level paragraphs.

If you want the first Alpha paragraph following a Level paragraph to display the value A, then you need to have two paragraph formats (possible Alpha and AlphaFirst) one of which resets the only used A: counter to A, and one which increments the counter. Thus, Alpha might use the autonumber A:<A+>., meaning increment the counter and display the value as an uppercase letter while AlphaFirst uses A:<A=1>., meaning reset the counter to 1 and display its value as an uppercase letter. By using the H: sequence, though, there is no need to tag the first lettered paragraph after a Level paragraph from the others. I therefore propose:

Alpha: H:< >< >< >< ><A+>.

This autonumber starts with four repetitions of < >. This building block consists of three characters: a space surrounded by angle brackets. It means preserve the value of the counter without displaying it. This autonumber hence means preserve but don’t show the four Level counters, increment the fifth counter and display it as an uppercase letter, and reset all remaining counters. Since this autonumber preserves the counters used by Level paragraphs, the autonumber of Level paragraphs is not affected by the presence of preceding Alpha paragraphs.

The last two paragraphs would use the following autonumbers:

Number: H:< >< >< >< >< ><n+>.
TwoPart: H:< >< >< >< >< ><n>.<n+>

Both of these autonumbers preserve the values of the four Level counters and the Alpha counter without displaying them. Number increments and displays the sixth counter and resets all other counters. The displayed number will therefore always start at 1 immediately after an Alpha paragraph. Finally, TwoPart preserves the first five counters without display, displays the unchanged value of the sixth counter, increments and displays the seventh counter, and resets all following counters.

Hope this helps,
         --Lynne