Numbered List Override Text Issue

[Mr. K]

I want to make the words Step 1 - bolder and oblique. I can select only the text "tep 1-" and make the change. If I try to select Step 1 - then the 5. is selected too and then it's font changes. These screen shots should make what's happening clear.

 

[Old Bruce]

I am probably wrong...

I am guessing that this is part of a numbered list, I haven't used numbered lists yet but I will jump in anyways. I think what is happening is that the S in step and the 5. are the same thing, i.e. they are the first character and so you have nothing to not select vis a vis the 5. . It is not actually there.

If I am wrong about the numbered list thing then you have a different problem, either way I would try messing about with the Initial Words section in the Paragraph Styles.

[thomaso]

Format the items as character style, not paragraph style.

And the numbers in the numbers panels style menu, not in paragraph style menu.

 

 

[Mr. K]

That does not work for me I need to make the first word after the number bolder, I can't sect it alone, the number gets selected too. I think Old Bruce is correct about the number and the first character are the same thing.

 

[Old Bruce]

49 minutes ago, Mr. K said:

That does not work for me I need to make the first word after the number bolder, I can't sect it alone, the number gets selected too. I think Old Bruce is correct about the number and the first character are the same thing.

Easy work around: you just need your cursor in the first word and then select the bold character style/attribute for the whole word to go bold. If you select one or more characters then only those will go bold. "Mar|k" (where the red bar is the text cursor) will become "Mark" if you hit the B button or select a bold Character Style.

If you want to have a Numbered List Paragraph Style it is more work in setting up a couple of styles but it will work better if you have a huge number of these lists.

[Mr. K]

4 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Easy work around: you just need your cursor in the first word and then select the bold character style/attribute for the whole word to go bold. If you select one or more characters then only those will go bold. "Mar|k" (where the red bar is the text cursor) will become "Mark" if you hit the B button or select a bold Character Style.

If you want to have a Numbered List Paragraph Style it is more work in setting up a couple of styles but it will work better if you have a huge number of these lists.

Sweet! That works. Thanks very much. Well, I may have spoken a bit too soon. I can make that first word bold, but I can't make it anything other than the style of the number. If I do that, then the number changes too.

[walt.farrell]

22 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

either way I would try messing about with the Initial Words section in the Paragraph Styles.

I just tried playing around with Initial Words briefly, for a numbered style (Number 1). I found that the Initial Words start from the number. So, if you say that 1 initial word should be Strong, the number is strong.

It gets tricky if you want the Initial Words to also apply to the first word of the text. The default numbering format seems to be the number, then a ".", then a tab, then the text. The "." seems to stop the initial words scan. So to get the formatting specified by Initial Words to apply to the actual words in the text I think you need to edit the style and delete the "." from the numbering specification so it's just number, then tab, then text.

[Old Bruce]

20 hours ago, Mr. K said:

If I do that, then the number changes too.

Here is a file to check and see if it does what you want.

nmubered list.afpub

[thomaso]

On 11/26/2018 at 8:09 PM, Old Bruce said:

"Mar|k" (where the red bar is the text cursor) will become "Mark" if you hit the B button or select a bold Character Style.

Great hint! I did not know this 1-word-selection before.

Another, less elegant workaround to select the first letter(s) [without using "Initial Words"]:
In the textframe type a space behind the tab of the number-element and directly before your text. It allows to select your text until the space.

[ Unfortunately: if you type the space in the Bullets and Numbering options text field, then its pasted in all list items with one go – but the trick does not work anymore / you can't select your text without the space that way.]

 

 

[Mr. K]

Old Bruce's efforts got me thinking and I found a simple workaround. Here's what I did since I only needed two sentences formatted differently than all the rest in the list;  I removed the number list format from those two sentences, I added the numbers manually, made them and the rest of the formatting look the same as the number list, changed the first words to bold italic, and then I started the number list again at the correct number. Even though I found an easy solution, this still would be "cleaner" if I could do it in the numbered list, and making it work that way (Dear Affinity) is the best solution I believe.

 

[Old Bruce]

9 minutes ago, Mr. K said:

I found a simple workaround.

Simple is better than complicated. [smiley face emotion]

[Mr. K]

@elmonopascual found a simple workaround. You can read about it in this post:

 

[MickRose]

Isn't it simpler to insert a zero width space before the first word to made bold? Then you can easily select the text to be changed without changing the number.

 

[elmonopascual]

MickRose: You are right. I didn't knew that option. Thanks!

[Alfred]

On 11/28/2018 at 2:51 PM, Old Bruce said:

Simple is better than complicated. [smiley face emotion]

Speaking of simple being better than complicated, try a colon immediately followed by a closing parenthesis (followed by a space or a new line).

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

Speaking of simple being better than complicated, try a colon immediately followed by a closing parenthesis (followed by a space or a new line).

But then I get an ambiguous image. [winkey face emoticon]

[Alfred]

38 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

But then I get an ambiguous image. [winkey face emoticon]

What’s ambiguous about  or ? 

[Mr. K]

@MickRose, That's a great solution.

[Seneca]

1 hour ago, Mr. K said:

That's a great solution.

While it might be a solution it's still a workaround in my opinion.

[Mr. K]

1 hour ago, Seneca said:

While it might be a solution it's still a workaround in my opinion.

I agree. This is something that Affinity needs to fix.

[thomaso]

8 hours ago, MickRose said:

Isn't it simpler to insert a zero width space before the first word to made bold?

It would be simpler to insert a space in the Bullets & Numbers text field, right behind the blueish tab symbol. Unfortunately it is disabled to insert any space there, the spaces are grayed out. There it would be simpler.

(possibly a default work around in AFPub: auto-insert a zero space together with a tab in Bullets & Numbers?)

 

Also it would be simpler to insert a space via find & replace. Unfortunately this is disabled, too:  A search for 'tab' finds all others in any document's text frame – excepted those created in "Bullets and Numbers".

[Mr. K]

The correct solution is for Affinity to fix this so I (we) can select the first word of the paragraph and modify that.

[thomaso]

44 minutes ago, Mr. K said:

The correct solution is (...) to fix this so I (we) can select the first word

A 'real', a user friendly, problem solving would fundamentally renew the UI concept of lists, e.g. show all indents in the text frame and in the text ruler and in panel "Paragraph" > "Tab Stops", too, AND have them edited here and there, including left, center, right, comma, dot etc. AND would enable to find them via Find & Replace. – The need for spaces AND the separate text box within the bullet options section would become redundant.

A tab is a tab is a tab – isn't it?

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/73122-numbered-lists/&tab=comments#comment-383379

[Chris_K]

This is going to sound odd but this is by design, or more a limitation. The number has to get a style from somewhere so it take it form the first character of the first word. As you have discovered there are ways around this but this is just a limitation when selecting the text. This isn't something unique to publisher, other DTP apps have the same issue and behave in a similar way

Cheers

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Chris_K said:

The number has to get a style from somewhere so it take it form the first character of the first word

Thanks, Chris.

I can accept that answer, but I'm still a bit confused. Looking at the first post in this thread, the numbers appear bold, but the text following them isn't. Where did the bold formatting come from?