Affinity Publisher: bullet list formatting is frustrating

[moonbeetle]

I had like 20 minutes to figure this out and I couldn't. The indent (space between the bullet and the text) I found quite fast. But how to reduce the leading between list items while preserving leading between text lines I couldn't find. I needed to make it a lot mor compact than the default spacing between list items. Next I wish there was just a thing like "Create style from selection" so I could apply the style to my other lists. I saw the group style option and created a new style but somehow it wouldn't apply to my other lists. Pfff...too difficult, not intuitive, frustrating and time was up.

[GarryP]

I’m not sure what you mean by “reduce the leading between list items while preserving leading between text lines” as they seem to be doing two opposing things, i.e. both reducing and preserving at the same time. Could you explain more about what you are trying to achieve please?

"Create style from selection" is available in the Text Styles panel, at the bottom-left, where the icons let you create Paragraph, Character or Group styles from your selected text.

[Joachim_L]

I guess I know what he/she/it wants to tell and I stumbled also upon it. Let's say we have three items flowing in two lines each in a bullet list, font size 10pt, leading 13pt. Now keep the leading of a bullet item (two lines) to 13pt, but reduce the Space after Paragraph to the next bullet item to 12pt.

Unfortunately negative space is not allowed.

PS: Made a test myself with a workaround (move the baseline up) and it looks ugly. More space between paragraphs is more elegant.

[GarryP]

Do you mean something like the attached image and file?
If not, please give a visual example to help me understand.

different-leadings.afpub

[Joachim_L]

Maybe more like this. Recalling the conversation I am no sure anymore.

different-leadings-2.afpub

[walt.farrell]

To sum up a bit, @Joachim_L has adjusted the baseline, but I think that's overly complex.

For a very compact bulleted list, one could simply update Bullet 1 and in the Paragraph Spacing section, turn on "Ignore space for same styles". That will eliminate the "space after" when you have multiple items using Bullet 1, but leave the default space after when the bulleted list transitions into another style, such as body.

@GarryP, on the other hand, adjusted the Space After value for Bullet 1 to make the list more compact. Note that Bullet 1 inherits from Base, which specifies Space After as 12pt, so Garry simply specified 6pt instead.

That works, and is easily adjustable if one wants a bit more or a bit less space, where my suggestion ("Ignore space...") is limited to having the same leading between the bullet paragraphs as between the lines, which may be a bit too compact for some uses.

However, there's also a hidden trick in Garry's document, which I like. If one simply decreases the Space After for a bulleted list, then there will be more space before the list (12 pt) than after the list (6pt) which will give an odd visual appearance. So Garry has also modified the Body text style to change it to specify Space Before as 12pt. Normally it would be 0pt (inherited from Base). Thanks for showing that, Garry!

[GarryP]

You’re welcome Walt.
It’s also worth noting that I turned the baseline grid OFF for the bullet lists.
Sometimes you need to play with the settings of the different styles involved to get a nice result.
And here’s another version, just for kicks:

different-leadings-3.afpub