Outline numbering features, their limitations and workarounds

Outlining in the topic list is the “recommended” approach in WhizFolders because it gives you the power to rearrange your outline by the easy “Move” buttons or by simple drag & drop of multiple topics, including their children.

Is it possible to automatically number the topic titles?

The topic titles serve as headings for an outline. Consider the following test outline prepared in the topic list.

A sample outline for testing in WhizFolders
A sample outline for testing in WhizFolders

To auto-number the outline, I click on the “List Settings” button marked in the above picture. I get this screen.

How to number an outline automatically
How to number an outline automatically

I switch on the marked option “Show Numbered List” above. Here is the result.

An auto-numbered outline
An auto-numbered outline

Once you switch on the Numbered List option, the list stays numbered, no matter what you do. If you add more topics or move the topics up or down, all the topics are renumbered automatically.

Is it possible to print the outline from the topic list while preserving the indentation?

Yes, here is a screenshot of the Microsoft XPS printout of the list.

A printed outline in WhizFolders
A printed outline in WhizFolders

If you don’t get the same results, check the printing options for multiple topics. You can see them by clicking on Settings–General Options.

Changing General Settings in WhizFolders
Changing General Settings in WhizFolders

You need to look at the page “Printing multiple topics” and switch on the option “Print indented” shown below. Make sure that the other marked option “Do not print topic titles” is off.

Outline printing options in WhizFolders
Outline printing options in WhizFolders

The space before and after the headings is controlled by the “Spacing in lines” settings at the bottom of the above screen. Currently, the minimum values allowed are 1 line before and after. But on an afterthought, I’m going to allow “zero” as the value for a more compact printing in the next version.

How do I print a compact outline without the headings?

This is the best part of WhizFolders when used in outlining. It’s so flexible! You can break up a large block of writing, even a complete novel into pieces that you outline, develop and write separately. Now you want to combine those pieces into a complete text draft. You don’t want the headings or topic titles in that case. All the export and printing features of WhizFolders give the option of switching off headings. So you can select all the parts and then perform operations “copy to clipboard” or “export to RTF” with the option not to include topic titles. Once you do that, you get a complete merged block of text without headings.

A similar option is available in printing too. In the options described above, you switch on the option “Do not print topic titles.” Here is the result.

How to print a compact outline without headings

Can I switch off the numbering of headings in the printed outline?

Yes, that is controlled by another option on the “Printing” page of the general options screen. The option that you want to switch on is marked in the following picture, “Do not number topic names in the printout.” Note that printing of numbers in the headings is controlled entirely by this option and not by the auto numbering option that was described above for “viewing” the topic list as numbered.

How to switch off numbering of outline when printing
How to switch off numbering of outline when printing

Logically, this option should have been with the same set of options described earlier but I never had a chance to redesign printing options and I can see that they are over crowded. I have plans to redesign the whole options area using a nice ribbon bar menu.

Do you see now why you should be using the topic list for all outlining?

You can break up your whole writing project into pieces, develop the outline and later merge it while printing or exporting the way you want.

Current limitations of the topic list are, “No control on the numbering format and style of the individual headings.”

Currently, you can not control the number format for the auto numbering or for printing. This is not too difficult to implement, and I’m going to do that in the next version itself. Another thing, it’s not possible to change the style of individual headings or topic titles. That’s more difficult to handle but will definitely be there in the next “major” release of WhizFolders.

But you should know that you can control the font of all the titles by the same “List Settings” screen that we saw earlier. Also, the printing options allow you to select the bold or italic type formats of all the headings. See the screenshot of the options for “printing multiple topics” above.

Workaround solutions for the above limitations

1. Export to Word Outline format: If you export the outline to Word outline format by the Tools–Export to RTF menu, you can then open it in Microsoft Word and change the styles as well as numbering by its advanced formatting features for headings. I had implemented this solution on the request of a customer who was happy with the results. But I, myself, have not used or researched it extensively. If you want to go this route, please share your experience with me.

2. Put headings in the topic text itself: If you put the headings to be printed or exported within the topic text itself at the top, you can still control them fully. But then you will have to switch off the export or printing of actual topic titles by using the options described above in “How do I print a compact outline without the headings?”

You can even avoid putting the headings in certain topics if they don’t need it in a merged output. You get complete flexibility. The only problem is, if you move the topics around, you may need to renumber the headings that you put in the topic text. They won’t renumber automatically because they are not in the topic list. But this is a solution that is workable indeed as long as you don’t resequence the outline often or do not need numbering at all for the headings but just headings with different styles.

Exit topic list and Enter topic editor for outlining

How else can we work around the above limitations of the topic list? For smaller outlines, you can use the nested numbered lists in the topic editor.

Then you can use custom numbering as well as style because it is within the topic editor. You will lose the power to move the headings around though which is available in the topic list. Perhaps, drag and drop will work in the editor too but it will be difficult to select whole items before dragging.

Making nested numbered lists for outlining in the topic Editor

For this to work properly in WhizFolders, the editing caret (blinking cursor) must already be on a list item. See the following picture where I started a “numbered” list in the editor and the caret is on the second item.

Starting a numbered list
Starting a numbered list

By the way, I’m using the Advanced Editor that gives me a wider window for editing. You can do this in the quick editor too.

Whenever you click on the increase indent button, it starts a nested list

In the following picture, the increase indent button is shown marked. When I click that, I get a nested numbered list in a different format than the enclosing list.

Start a nested list with different number format
Start a nested list with different number format

The inner list is in roman numbers. But I can change the number format by the “List Type” pull down on the Tool bar.

Changing number format of the nested list
Changing number format of the nested list

I change the nested list format to A., B., … Then I click on the same increase indent button and add another nested list, changing its type to 1., 2. by using the same technique as described above. Here is how it looks now.

Resuming an enclosing list in nested lists
Resuming an enclosing list in nested lists

Now, how do I resume adding items to the “enclosing list?”

When the editing caret is as shown above, I click on the decrease indent button circled above. This will resume the enclosing list. Please see the picture below.

Enclosing list resumed at correct next item, C
Enclosing list resumed at correct next item, C

Did you notice that it resumed at the correct next item, C. If I were to click the same Decrease Indent button again, it will resume the main list.

Resuming the correct number in the enclosing list can sometimes break

You will see that as you increase and decrease indent, making nested lists, or even insert blank lines in between, WhizFolders is able to continue the numbering.

For example, see the following picture. I hit the Enter key several times to insert some blank lines. This stops the list numbering. But if I click on the Numbered List button, it resumes the list again at C. This “correct” resuming has lot of effort behind it.

Inserting several blank lines and clicking on the Numbered List button resumes the numbering at the correct sequence.
Inserting several blank lines and clicking on the Numbered List button resumes the numbering at the correct sequence.

What if the numbering breaks? There is a solution.

Resuming the numbering might break at times due to some internal rtf formatting. If that happens, you can take help of a special button. See the button marked in the above picture, next to List Type pull down. That is a “Change starting number” button. If I click that button, I can change the next sequence number.

Change next sequence number
Change next sequence number

I can enter the number 3 if the sequence was other than C and I wanted to correct it to C. The only trick is that you need to enter a number that you want the numeric list item to use. If the numeric list is of the type A., B., C., you still need to enter a number, 1 for A, 2 for B and so on.

You can use “Change Starting Number” button to start a new numbered list in the same topic.

If later in the same topic, I want to start a new numbered list starting from 1, I will have to use the same button and start at 1. In fact, that’s the main purpose of the button as originally designed. But it can be used for fixing a number too.

If you get any more questions or ideas on the same topic, please write to me and I will try to answer them in a new post.

Hoisting much improved

In case you haven’t noticed, the hoisting feature has been completely revamped a while back. Now you can hoist any level. Hoisting means, you want to concentrate on a particular tree of notes and don’t want other topics to be visible to distract you. Here is an example, the following list of topics shows a list before hoisting.

List before hoisting

Suppose, I want to concentrate on the topics underneath “The power of hyperlinks” to develop that outline further. So I select that topic and click on the menu “View–Hoist all child topics.” As soon as I do that, all other topics go away and I only see the topics that I want to work with. Here is a picture after hoisting.

List after hoisting

This list exactly works like the full list. I can add more topics, move them around, print them, and so on. Even if I close this document, it remembers its hoisted status. When I finish working on this hoisted list, I can go back to the full list by the menu “View–Unhide All (unhoist).”

If you use WhizFolders for outlining and haven’t used hoisting, try it out. It makes the outlining process much more powerful.

Experiments in Novel writing with WhizFolders

“It’s perfect. It’s very close to Info Recall with some very nice added functionality. One of the ways I used the other program, which I’ll now do here, is to keep notes on characters in a complex novel. For example, I created the MicroTech Inc. and used it in various chapters. Each time I mentioned a new peripheral character, like a security guard, I’d go to the MicroTech Employees topic, and list that character name, and where s/he appeared. These characters didn’t need a profile, but it’s nice to know that in Chapter 20, when I refer to the security guard again, I know his name. :-)”

“Another example is that my characters either smoke or don’t, or they drink tea or coffee. I have a Coffee & Cigarettes topic, and list each character there by their preferences. Then I put a JumpLink to that topic in each character’s bio. It’s a quick way to know what they drink in the morning, instead of having to wander through a whole profile. After all, they pick each other up spontaneously, and spend the night. This gives me a way to stay consistent without having to lose my train of thought in the midst of a chapter.”

“Finally, I use Jump Links to connect up related characters, rather than having to make long references to family trees, character profiles, and so forth. “Mike” is married to “Kate” and each has their own profiles. The link feature is perfect for joining them, then their kids, and so forth. I can have the McCaffery family as a Topic, but all it contains is named links to each individual family member. Then that topic is the profile, with further links to other relatives and their profiles.”

“I’d suppose that WhizFolders could easily step in as a way to keep track of extended families. :-)”

— Craig Landes