I am finding that when I bring bulleted lists in from Word, the bullets are not displaying properly. Here’s a screen cap of what it looks like, with three different types of bullets. This is consistent whether the list is imported in a file or just copied and pasted from Word. Numbered .lists display as expected. Any ideas what might be going on? Thanks!
Hi. Reviving this old thread This is I’ve had to learn to live with. But that at the moment is presenting an extreme inconvenience, as I have a long Word document with many paragraphs with unnumbered bulleted that I would like to bring into Scrivener. The bullets almost never get to a second level
I’ll confess upfront that I am not using the latest versions of either Word (2007) or Scrivener (3.1.1.0). But I am wondering if someone who is using the latest Scrivener for Windows, along with Windows version of either Word 2019 or Word 2021, might see if unnumbered bullets translate correctly when they originate in Word, and are then either pasted from, imported into, or (externally) synced back into Scrivener. When I do any of these, I get the results in the above screencap.
Thank you!
What happens if you select the whole of a list and “change” the list type from the toolbar list’s dropdown ?
Does the wrong symbol stick ?
Can you share an old Word file as source so I may see (as you asked for) how it goes in the latest Scrivener built ?
I don’t have Word to test with, but the only way I got a result like that was from copy and paste from LibreOffice. When I saved to .odt, .rtf and .docx samples and imported all three, they came in with all expected levels (8 tested, with custom numbering/bullet styles applied to all 8 levels).
I know that doesn’t help you with Word, but maybe try RTF if you haven’t already. Perhaps the way Word-2007 saves DOCX files isn’t working with with the Aspose conversion engine we use expects them. RTF is a bit more stable, and requires less heavy lifting from Scrivener’s side to convert.
Thank you Vincent and AmberV for those replies.
I’ve zipped and uploaded a Word 2007 docx file that when brought into S by either direct pasting, importing, or by external sync, shows the problem.
Usually, I work in Word with rtf files generated by the Scriv sync process, which get opened, edited, and saved in Word as rtf. When synced back, bullets show up as displayed in the OP.
Those “fractional” bullet characters also happen when simply pasting from Word to Scrivener, regardless of where the doc originated or whether it was saved. Likewise, when a docx file is imported as a docx.
Once the list is in Scrivener, the bullets can be corrected, more or less, using Scriv’s bullets dropdown. But when doing that on multiple paragraphs at a time the results start getting messy in ways that are reminiscent of the “unstable dynamite” issues with lists where they break when edited.
I realize that seeking support on compatibility for a program 16 years out of date is just asking to be yelled at. (Thanks for not doing that… yet… 
) In fact, I will likely be updating my computer and Office software soon. But am hoping to find out, before I do, that this problem in particular is due to my old software, and will be solved by the upgrades. Is the attached file of any use in that?
Word 2007 bullets to Scrivener.zip (19.8 KB)
This is what I got.
But, I am able to change the list to whatever type I want, without any issues, after first doing this :
So, either resetting the indents fixed it. Or I just can’t reproduce the secondary issue (when fixing the lists / multiple paragraphs) on my system.
[EDIT] I reimported anew, and the indents have nothing to do with it. I just can’t currently mess it up.
I get different glyphs then either of you, but the bullet character is still wrong. My only good guess is that Word is asking for a bullet style Scrivener doesn’t understand, and it is getting mapped to some other character (35/17 for example might not be a fraction, but how Unicode character U+3517 is displayed for you—why it is that, I don’t know). When I look at the list codes the Word copy is defining and using, at the code level, it’s doing something odd. Scrivener establishes a filled disc bullet with the basic formal Unicode character itself as part of the definition for that list level, which you can see right here in your browser:
<w:lvlText w:val="•"/>
Whereas Word uses this:
<w:lvlText w:val=""/>
What that looks like in your browser may depend on your fonts, but if you search for it you’ll find it is U+F0B7, or a private use symbol, which it seems they are mapping to WingDings internally (from this helpful post I found when searching for some notable keywords).
So if I were make a tentative guess, 2007 Word wasn’t entirely Unicode-friendly yet, and is using the old WingDings glyphs to make bullets through a complex mapping Scrivener doesn’t understand, and so it takes the symbol literally and we get some unreadable thing glyph symbol instead, or some substitution.
In short: newer versions of Scrivener than what you are using do have bug fixes made to lists—including the indent bug, which was the main one that made a mess of things, including a tool for fixing them (mentioned above). But it doesn’t seem to improve its understanding of this bullet method. That may no longer be a problem in modern Office versions—at least I think if it was, we’d probably hear a whole lot more about it.
Thank you both, again. Especially for playing along when I’m using older versions of both S and W.
So if I were make a tentative guess, 2007 Word wasn’t entirely Unicode-friendly yet, and is using the old WingDings glyphs to make bullets through a complex mapping Scrivener doesn’t understand, and so it takes the symbol literally and we get some unreadable thing glyph symbol instead, or some substitution.
That suggest to me that, were I to open the the Word 2007 docs that contain these bullets using a newer version of Word, I might find a similar glyph substitution problem as I’m seeing in Scrivener. That’s so easy to imagine, I half expect it.
I should have a newer version of Word installed later this week. Along with a new install of Scrivener, all on a new machine. This will be one of the first things I check out.
Will let you know what I find!
TY!
Sounds like it’s Christmas. No doubt that’ll level you up. 
It would surprise me if Microsoft has overlooked that, as they are generally pretty good about backward compatibility, even to a fault (they only just removed the last of MS-DOS from Windows 11). Indeed even LibreOffice found the right bullets to use. I did try Save As from there, to see if it would “modernise” them, but no luck, it keeps on using the method that was defined in the file as opened, unless you manually change the list styles I suppose.
I should have a newer version of Word installed later this week. Along with a new install of Scrivener, all on a new machine. This will be one of the first things I check out.
My hope is that you find less of a reason to sling text about, since lists have been improved.
Hello everyone
I have an import problem on Scrivener. When copying my text from the word file to the Scrivener tabs, some dialog hyphens keep their shape while others (during the same import) are replaced by an error rectangle.
Where does this come from?
Thanks in advance