The buttons in the toolbar are for "quick-and-dirty" one-shot documents. When you need more elaborate formatting, you proceed with so-called styles which control all lay out aspects.
In your case, type your list paragraph with one of the "built-in" styles like Numbering 1. Modify this paragraph style (x) to your liking (spacing, margins, ...) and, very important, in tab Outline & Numbering
, associate it with a list style (or numbering style), say Numbering 1. Click OK
.
Next, modify list style Numbering 1, tab Options
. You can tune the attributes of up to 10 list levels. Click OK
.
To add a new list item, style the paragraph as Numbering 1. To promote or demote this paragraph to another level, set the cursor before the first character (not counting the bullet/number which is automatically inserted by LO) and press Tab
or Shift
+Tab
.
(x) Display the style panel with F11
. Right-click on a style name and choose Modify...
. The style family is selected with the small icon in the panel toolbar, from left to right: paragraph, character, frame, page, list, table.
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EDIT 2017-07-22
A styled bulleted list needs two styles: a paragraph style and a (badly named) list style. The paragraph style defines the usual attributes (spacing, margin, font, variants, ...) for the list item text. the "list" style defines the appareance of the list item bullet/number. What is disturbing is the fact that both styles, though very different in nature, can bear the same name (they are in diferent namespaces) but this is not required.
The end result is bullet/numbering is automatically added as soon as you select the paragraph style and the "decorations" are entirely under your control. The really big advantage is the "decorations" are guaranteed the same and, as is the case with styles, changing the "decorations" in the style definition propagates automaticelly.
There is nothing special with the paragraph style for a list, apart from the fact that you'll semantically dedicate this style to a list. as a convenience, to make sure the appearance is similar to bulk text, all List x and Numbering x styles inherit from Text Body through an intermediate List which should not be used (acts as a template to define default properties for all lists if need to be different from Text Body).
Unfortunately, built-in List x and Numbering x come without association with a list style to define their numbering/bullet, i.e. they are strictly equivalent to a common text paragraph style. To transform them into true style for list, you must associate them with a list style. This is done in paragraph style definition dialog under tab Outline & Numbering
, drop-down menu Numbering
.
Remember that paragraph and list styles are in different namespaces and you are not required ... (more)
It seems odd, that we cannot change the defaults of bulleted lists - wouldn't it be wise to have the desired outline / format, when hitting Shift + F12?