Number Lists - Indenting

[Martigny]

I've been having trouble indenting number lists. However, with perseverance I found a 'text ruler' that does the job perfectly. Just putting this post up to help anyone else who's wondering how to adjust margins, without playing around with the text box. File attached. Don't forget to update the style.

Great feature thank you Serif!

Number List and Indent.afpub

[Dave Harris]

Indenting paragraphs can be done with the Spacing section of the Paragraph panel. We didn't duplicate those options in the Bullets and Numbering section, to save some screen space as we hoped it wouldn't be necessary.

[Martigny]

43 minutes ago, Dave Harris said:

Indenting paragraphs can be done with the Spacing section of the Paragraph panel. We didn't duplicate those options in the Bullets and Numbering section, to save some screen space as we hoped it wouldn't be necessary.

Thanks for the reply Dave. I just tried that. I found it a little fiddly though and would certainly prefer this feature to be in the Bullets and Numbering section as I use a lot of lists in my work.

Still, it works!

 

[Seneca]

Tough call this but I tend to agree more with Dave. Spacing is more generally a paragraph wide issue and Bullets, Numbering fall under that.

[Martigny]

3 hours ago, Dave Harris said:

Indenting paragraphs can be done with the Spacing section of the Paragraph panel. We didn't duplicate those options in the Bullets and Numbering section, to save some screen space as we hoped it wouldn't be necessary.

Of course, now that I can set my defaults (no style) the way I want them I shall change the indents your way and save it as a style. Thank you again.

[robinp]

On 9/3/2018 at 10:55 AM, Dave Harris said:

Indenting paragraphs can be done with the Spacing section of the Paragraph panel. We didn't duplicate those options in the Bullets and Numbering section, to save some screen space as we hoped it wouldn't be necessary.

The trouble I'm having is when a list item runs on to a second line, is getting the left margin (assumed left aligned) of the second line to align with the first line. Ie, I want the bullet / number / letter for the list to be to the left of the left hand margin of the text.

Am I just being dumb or is this not currently possible?

 

 

[A_B_C]

I believe you will have to solve this by applying a global negative first-line indent to your list.

[Dave Harris]

54 minutes ago, robinp said:

The trouble I'm having is when a list item runs on to a second line, is getting the left margin (assumed left aligned) of the second line to align with the first line. Ie, I want the bullet / number / letter for the list to be to the left of the left hand margin of the text.

Am I just being dumb or is this not currently possible?

You should be able to set the bullet tabstop position to be the same as the left indent.

[robinp]

1 minute ago, Dave Harris said:

You should be able to set the bullet tabstop position to be the same as the left indent.

I don't seem to be able to get any of the tab setting to work within the bullet / numbering settings. Maybe I'm just not doing it right.

[robinp]

38 minutes ago, A_B_C said:

I believe you will have to solve this by applying a global negative first-line indent to your list.

This just doesn't seem to work for me. I have 2 problems:

1. I can only seem to get a space between the bullet and the text by inserting spaces (can't get the tabs to work)
2. The first line doesn't seem to be controlled in the same way you can control yours (maybe linked to above?)

See below (ignore what the text actually says):

[Dave Harris]

Does your bullet text actually include a tab character after the bullet? If not, you can add one by typing \t.

If that doesn't help, can you attach a document that you think should work but doesn't?

[A_B_C]

Here is a short video I made. It should explain the procedure quite clearly. As Dave said, it is important that you have a tab after the bullet in your settings. The presence of a tab is indicated by the blue >> icon in the Text field  of Bullets and Numbering. 

 

 

[robinp]

19 hours ago, A_B_C said:

Here is a short video I made. It should explain the procedure quite clearly. As Dave said, it is important that you have a tab after the bullet in your settings. The presence of a tab is indicated by the blue >> icon in the Text field  of Bullets and Numbering. 

Thanks for this and indeed it does work.

It turns out the problem I am facing is related to the settings applied in the text styles panel. If I try to set up a List text style, I cannot set a Tabstop distance. It defaults to '[No change]' which I presume means it is inheriting from the parent text style. 

I have now though, managed to set the style by creating the text how I want it and then updating the style to match using the drop down to the right of the style in the style panel.

[robinp]

So in summary, there is a bug within the text styles settings. You cannot set up a list style directly as a new style, you have to first get the text looking how you want it and then update a style from the selected text. OK for now as a work around but it needs a fix in due course @Chris_K @MEB

[Dave Harris]

I have logged the bug.

[nicolleen]

Hi,

I found this video very useful, but I'm having one problem with it. 

I don't have these little triangles to move around along the ruler! Where do I switch them into view?

I've attached a screenshot.

Thanks a lot!

lg

niki

[nicolleen]

Sorry, I've found them after all!

It is under View>Show text rulers

[squinx]

HI there,

I am having the same issue of being confused as to how to save a multi level list as well as getting the tab stops to work to create space between the number or bullet and the text. The video is no longer available, could it be re-posted please? Looks like it was helpful to folks.

Thank you!

[MikeTO]

Hi @squinx and welcome to the forum.

1. Place the text cursor in a paragraph or select a range of paragraphs.

2. Select the Bulleted List or Numbered List icons in the Context Toolbar or choose Text > List > Bullet or Number. It's better to use these options than to change the list Type in Paragraph > Bullets and Numbering because this will take care of the indents for you.

3. Place the text cursor at the start of a list paragraph that should be a child of the item before it, or select a range of paragraphs o

4. Press Tab to increase the list level or press Shift + Tab to decrease the list level. This will change the List Level and Left Indent values without entering a tab character.

5. To include the parent's number in in the list number (for example, 1.1, 1.2…), insert the parent’s level number into the Text field by clicking the caret icon at its Text field and selecting \1, \2... as appropriate. For numbers such as 1.1, 1.2, the Text field should be: 

[squinx]

@MikeTO Thank you! Much easier! 

So If I was going to save these text styles, would I save them as one or 2 paragraph styles?
And curious if anyone has had issues creating space between the bullet or number and the text? I have used tab stop in the paragraph styles and the bullet / number list area and I'm finding it difficult to find consistency. Sometimes neither one work.

[MikeTO]

45 minutes ago, squinx said:

So If I was going to save these text styles, would I save them as one or 2 paragraph styles?
And curious if anyone has had issues creating space between the bullet or number and the text? I have used tab stop in the paragraph styles and the bullet / number list area and I'm finding it difficult to find consistency. Sometimes neither one work.

If you want to style the bullet or number you would create a character style and choose it in Bullets and Numbering > Style. After styling the list item the way you want, then create a paragraph style based on it. For a multi-level list, you'd need two paragraph styles.

I'm unsure what issue you're having with the space. The tab stop works as you'd expect but it's the space from the left edge of the text frame, not from the number, so keep that in mind. The trickiest part is right aligning numbers. The first line indent must be greater than zero but it takes some fiddling to find the right value. Experiment with the widest number you expect to use. You may need to adjust the tab stop for wider numbers.

Cheers

[MikeTO]

Also, and this is the big aha moment, don't create a bulleted list by typing a paragraph and setting Type to 1, 2, 3 in the Bullets and Number section of the Paragraph panel. That won't set the indents properly and you'll have to do more work.

It's always better to start a list by typing the paragraph and then clicking Bulleted List or Numbered List in the Context Toolbar (or choose the equivalent menu command). Those options will create the list and set the indents to good starting values. You can custom the indents and list options from there.

[squinx]

6 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Also, and this is the big aha moment, don't create a bulleted list by typing a paragraph and setting Type to 1, 2, 3 in the Bullets and Number section of the Paragraph panel. That won't set the indents properly and you'll have to do more work.

It's always better to start a list by typing the paragraph and then clicking Bulleted List or Numbered List in the Context Toolbar (or choose the equivalent menu command). Those options will create the list and set the indents to good starting values. You can custom the indents and list options from there.

Indeed, that tip was a gamechanger @MikeTO - I was driving myself crazy trying to get things consistent! Thank you so much for the speedy response.