The base list mechanism is implemented for “standard simple” lists, i.e. an “administrative” list where the items have a uniform formatting across all levels. You configure this service by attaching a list style to a paragraph style in its Outline & List tab.
Changing item level is done by pressing Tab or Shift+Tab to increment or decrement level respectively with the cursor at very head of item.
This is not satisfactory for headings where you need different formatting (at least size, angle, weigt and spacing) to distinguish visually your outline level. Developers have then added Tools>Heading Numbering to allow to attach various paragraph styles to the internal heading list style. Note that this approach is the opposite of the base feature (attaching paragraph styles – plural – to a list style instead of attaching a list style to a paragraph style – singular --).
But this does not forbid you to do the same (manually without configuration dialog assistance).
You create your paragraph styles, one per level. You attach the same list style to all these paragraph styles. I emphasised “same” to insist upon the necessity of sharing the list style if you want your numbering to be consistent across levels.
You now have a set of paragraph styles which all create level-1 items when you apply the paragraph style. You must manually shift the item to its proper level. The recipe has already been given:
- put the cursor at the very beginning of the item
- press n-1 times Tab to promote your item to level-n
Use Shift+Tab to correct excess presses.
I read that the feature has been improved in 24.8.x (Outline & List tab of paragraph style) but since this version has not yet bubbled up in my standard Linux distro, I have not experimented. I don’t remember if the improvement is related to headings or lists in general to automate the association level-paragraph style.
