Weird black rectangle in Word's headings

Question

I am trying to build a Word template. It was working perfectly. I saved the document and opened it on another computer and I saw this:

All the sections were replaced with a weird black rectangle.

On the Define new Multilevel list I don't see Chapitre 2 but an empty field with a small dot pixel on the top left (in the Enter formatting for number: section).

I cannot delete it or remove it. How can I fix this?

I've uploaded a minimal .docx file in base64: https://pastebin.com/rF9jgWCs

Note that https://superuser.com/a/516480/374513 doesn't solve the problem.

Answer 1

Here is a short macro to repair this from Word MVP Doug Robbins:

Sub FixNumberingIssuesInLists()
'Macro originally created by MVP Doug Robbins
'Modified by MVP Stefan Blom, February 2020
Dim LT As ListTemplate
Dim i As ListLevel
For Each LT In ActiveDocument.ListTemplates
    For Each i In LT.ListLevels
        If i.NumberStyle <> wdListNumberStyleBullet Then
            i.Font.Reset
        End If
    Next i
Next LT
End Sub

I tried it with your sample and it works fine.

Microsoft Community Answers

• Using macros by Greg Maxey
• Installing macros from forums by Graham Mayor

Answer 2

You have managed to create a very weird style, creating a header without numbering.

Here is how to undo the damage:

• Click the line "Weird is weird!"
• Click twice the numbering icon in the Paragraph group. The first click will make it into non-numbered and the second will remake it into numbered, but now with the right number 1
• In the Home pane click the bottom-right icon in the Styles group
• Click the drop-down button to the right of "Heading 1;Chapitre" and select "Update Heading 1 to Match Selection"
• Weird is now not so weird any more.