How to display indent level numerically

[radbobdad]

I want to create something like a numbered list, but where the item number reflects the indent level. This is to represent a multi-branching hierarchy of questions. Example:

1 Why am you confused?
  Because I am a newbie
  2 Why are you a newbie?
    Because I don't write a lot of documents and have never had to do this before
     3 Why don't you write a lot of documents?
        Because that's not my main job function
       4 Why is that not your main job function?
          Because I find it mind-numbing and I have pursued a career where I mostly do other things
          5 Why do you find it mind-numbing?
             Because it's not analytical enough for me
          5 Why have you pursued a career where you mostly do other things?
             Because I find writing mind-numbing
     3 Why have you not had to do this before?
        Because this is never come up
        4 Why has this never come up?
           Because I mostly write simple documents
           5 Why do you mostly write simple documents?
              Because I want to get it over with as quickly as possible

I want the lines auto-numbered based on indentation level. Is there an easy way to do this in LibreOffice?

(extra points if you can guess from this example what company I work for)

Thanks,
Bob

[RGB-es]

You can “hack” a bullet list to provide such order. First insert a normal bullet list. Then go to its configuration and then to the Customize tab to finally choose the character for the “bullet”: just pick the proper number for each level as “symbol”

[radbobdad]

This proved to be very simple, if not very flexible (I’ve decided I’d prefer to use “1.” for example instead of “1”).

[ajlittoz]

This is the proper way of doing it. You can even refine the solution by defining a dedicated paragraph style linked to a so-called list style to only need to “type” your paragraphs with this single paragraph style, thus minimising manual fiddling on text.

[Lupp]

The attached example is containing the code I sketched.

Sub aboutParaIndent()
indentStep = 1250 
REM (1.25cm) 1251 actually for unknown reasons in Writer.No effect in this context.
REM I don't know a way to change the value.
REM If you know one and made a change, you need to set the correct value above.
theDoc  = ThisComponent
theText = theDoc.Text
theParaEnum = theText.CreateEnumeration
Do While theParaEnum.HasMoreElements
	thePara = theParaEnum.NextElement
	theTC = theText.CreateTextCursorByRange(thePara)
	theTC.GotoStartOfParagraph(False)
	theText.InsertString(theTC,""&Format((thePara.ParaLeftMargin \ 1250) + 1,"00") & ": ",False)
Loop	
End Sub

[radbobdad]

Thanks, but this is way over my head. I don’t know how to add code to LiberOffice.

[radbobdad]

I also posted this question and got an additional answer here:

https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=90841&sid=163647a806f53b9f5f700c3ac9192143

But that’s still more work than hacking the bullet list as suggested by RGB-es