Sorry, I’m not asking how to create a list, I’m asking how to number the lines of text that already exist, without also numbering the blank lines… Is there a way to do that?
Selecting multiple “paragraphs” and hitting the toolbar button numbers the blank lines, which is what I’m trying to avoid, selecting each “paragraph” individually and then clicking the toolbar button is no less time-consuming than just manually typing a number for each entry.
Do I understand from this that there is no actual way to simultaneously re-number all of the text and none of the blank lines?
Blank lines are a sin against proper use of document processors. If they have no meaning other than creating vertical space between paragraphs, they should be replaced by adequate settings in the paragraph style definition (for styles usage, read the manual). Blank lines are tolerated if they have a real semantic significance. This is why they are numbered as part of the discourse.
Free tip: to see where you have blank lines, View>Formatting Marks. This will also unneeded space characters or multiple spaces.
@LisaK , I feel your pain 
I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing. I simply want to number paragraphs and leave the blank space between them unnumbered. Well, I haven’t been able to figure it out. So, I simply open the Libre Office document - saved as “.docx” in my old version of Word and format it there. In other words, it’s a feature that Word offers that Libre Office does not appear to offer. I want blank lines unnumbered between paragraphs, because that’s what I want. Period.
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Having blank lines unnumbered seems like a very reasonable request.
I totally disagree. If you type voluntarily blank lines, you consider they contain information and consequently are relevant. Thus they must be numbered.
Using them to create vertical spacing is a fault. Doing so has severe bad side-effects when you review your formatting. They potentially ruin your layout, causing text to overflow to next page and misaligning everything.
Instead of educating its users, Words encourages to keep bad habits, turning them into “standard” formatting methods under the wrong assertion they are “intuitive”. Trying to fix these bad behaviours makes interpretation of text non uniform: features become context-dependent based on arbitrary assumptions. The net result is to make impossible to use regular features in advanced formatting (I have in mind a workaround for unavailable run-in heading where these “compatibility rules” inherited from Word complicates the solution with no practical reason).
All objects in Writer, notably paragraphs, are built around a box model. The “main” rectangular area is dedicated to text. It is extended by a “margin” area (this is the word used in the HTML model) around the main area. This margin is configured horizontally as indents and vertically as spacing in the paragraph style dialog. Your blank lines are poor ersatz for the “margin” definition. It is much less versatile and, as already mentioned, does not cover the same semantic value.
A lot of high-level automation has been implemented in document processors. Reverting to low-level artefacts like blank line for vertical spacing completely annihilates this automation and add pains to author’s work (contrary to what you might think). Perhaps, what is missing in the writing landscape is an application intermediate between simple text editor and full-fledged document processor. Please, don’t request features which will prove detrimental to educated use of Writer. Learn what is implemented, i.e. styles, practice them and discover their power of expression.
If anyone has a useful answer, in other words something other than telling me to read an entire manual about document formatting that I will never use, or that I should learn and use elaborate document formatting to type a basic list, I’d sure love to hear it. I want to do something very simple, add numbers to a list such that the numbers are for the actual items, not for the blank lines… Is this doable in ANY program? Thanks!
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The solution is Microsoft Word. It doesn’t number blank lines between paragraphs. Simple.
You finish a paragraph. Hit enter twice to leave a blank line between paragraphs. When you number the paragraphs, Word ignores the blank line. I totally support LibreOffice but I can’t understand why it doesn’t emulate this particularly useful feature in Word.
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It isn’t a “particularly useful feature in Word”, it is a sin against intelligence.
LO Writer does it right. It numbers every line typed by the user because it contains information. If user typed an empty paragraph, this empty paragraph has some value for him and bears a specific significance.
This means vertical spacing must not be done with empty paragraphs because there are better means. In Writer, a paragraph is tagged with a paragraph style categorising the paragraph as a note, comment, citation, heading, remark, theorem, rule, directive, … or non-categorised text (bulk text).
Every such significance has some semantics and value, which is encoded in attributes. Among these attributes, you have space above and below the paragraph, i.e. vertical spacing. This vertical spacing is really dummy. No object is associated with it. Therefore, Writer does not see it and does not number it.
The fact that M$ Word does it wrong is not an incentive to degrade the smart way Writer follows.
Seriously, “a sin against intelligence”? Bit harsh. As someone who used Word for many years before LO I was just surprised that something that seemed so simple in Word didn’t work the same way in LO. I’m not judging which is right or wrong. They’re different. Repeat, different.
Now that I know that all I have to do is hit Shift/Enter and then Enter again to produce a blank line that doesn’t get numbered in LO, I’m a happy camper. But I have to tell you for some reason it wasn’t easy to find that solution. I find your tone very bullying. Perhaps unintentionally so. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I accept your explanation. I assure you that I had no intention of degrading LO. But suggesting that what Word does is “wrong” just made me chuckle. What I find very unfunny at the moment is the fact that my recently installed LO 7.2.2.2 seems to be hanging pretty much every time I open a new document. I’m on OSX 10.15.7. Sigh.
Sorry wasn’t intending to ask that question here. Just an observation.
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It’s quicker and easier to just number each item than to do Shift/Enter Enter after it… but beyond that, it doesn’t help with the original problem, which is to number a list that has already been created, without doing something that takes as much time as just going back and adding numbers, or reading a whole manual and creating some elaborate… whatever that other guy was talking about, lol.
Word is $70 per year; not worth it to be able to number a few lists.
The truest test of the value of any text-handling program is, can you do basic, typical tasks quickly, easily, and in an intuitive way. Having to read a manual and create an elaborate style sheet to write a grocery list is a FAIL, and so is having no way to select items and have the program understand that a list is text, NOT blank lines.
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@ljc: apologies, I completely misunderstood your question/remark and went on a wrong track. You added to an old topic and I didn’t reread the original question which was about list numbers. I was abused by my superficial reading and thought you were talking about line numbering which can automatically be added in the margin for easy reference in legal text or others.
I assume you are direct formatting your text and mainly relying on toobar buttons or keyboard shortcuts as this is the inherited routine from M$ Word. And this is where most of formatting problems occur.
In this context, you have a much easier way to disable list numbering: after typing Enter to end your previous list item, you create a new item (at this point, you only have the number and empty contents); press Backspace (in start of list context, it deletes the number only; to delete the paragraph mark, you must press Backspace again). Type your paragraph contents.
Warning Shift+Enter may cause you trouble, notably if you justify your paragraphs.
What I previously wrote about vertical spacing is still valid. To make progress in Writer usage, I recommend you read the Writer Guide. It may give you some introspection about author’s job. Styles are great friends.
I have downloaded the file suggested by koyotak and can see the hierarchical lists upon opening it. How exactly is this going to help solve my issue? Am I expected to copy and paste my text at the “xxxx” placeholder? Additionally, how are “Character_20_style,” “Wisdom,” and “Electrician’s rule” related to my problem? Are you just trying to help those who cannot afford a Microsoft license?
LibreOffice Help on Adding Line Numbers.
Don’t know in which version this function was added, but is valid at 7.1.7.2.
Yes, I manually changed from “7.2” to “latest”, so the link remains valid in time. Maybe it is inherited from OpenOffice.
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Are you suggesting that adding Line Numbers using Tools Menu and deselecting Blank Lines checkbox is the answer to this question?
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Note the difference between lines and paragraphs.
The question is about a case, when user created several paragraphs, including empty paragraphs (called “lines” incorrectly), like this:
abc¶
def¶
¶
ghi¶
and formats them as a ordered list. The idea is to get something like
- abc¶
- def¶
¶
- ghi¶
Well, there was an explanation, why this workflow may be considered flawed; that explanation ignited responses like
and
Let me provide another perspective on this. And let me start with another quote.
That’s the very important point.
Writer is built on some different principles. Lists are one place where the differences are visible, and result in some different features that Writer has, and Word hasn’t. I talk about list items.
The concept of a list item in Word is very simplistic: a list item is a single paragraph. That’s bad. It is reasonable to think, that in a text like
- Create an idea.¶
- Implement it.¶
Do it as efficient as possible.¶
You may ask for help of others when doing this.¶ - Estimate the effort.¶
- Report the results.¶
the item 2 of the list is the three paragraphs, not one “Implement it”. Why? E.g., because later, when I realize that my current item 2 must actually be number 3, and I want to move it down one line, I want it to happen with all three paragraphs at once. They relate to each other; they constitute one atomic item. And Writer implements the idea of “several paragraphs may constitute a single list item”, using so-called (badly named!) “unnunmbered entry”. In Word, you have to workaround the lack of the functionality, creating fake “unnumbered entries”, which still aren’t part of the list fundamentally. (I must say, that the atomic movement is not properly implemented in Writer currently: tdf#155834; but that’s a bug, and should be fixed, and is not some conceptual decision.)
And here we see another difference: the means to reorder list items. In Writer, when you are in a list, you get a toolbar with tools like Move Item Up/Down. There is no such tool in Word. Yes, Word has its own tools like “Move Up/Down” for its Outline View - but that’s not about lists; it works on outline level, and would treat non-list paragraphs the same as list paragraphs.
So in the “expected” resulting list, interrupted by a non-list paragraph, the tools would never be able to conclude, that moving the item 2 “def” up should also move the “whitespace” (the empty paragraph) together: they are completely unrelated paragraphs, even not parts of the same list, let alone of the same list item.
Let me provide another example, why would e.g. I consider what @LisaK wants (and @shantanuo considers “a very reasonable request”) bad. I open Word, and create several empty paragraphs:
¶
¶
¶
¶
¶
I intend to make a list of them. Well, I select them, and press the “Numbering” button. I expect them to become numbered. Why? Because that’s what I want. Period.
So guess what I see instead?
You got it. Word knows better than me.
I want to say, that technically, it is very easy to change the code that applies numbering (either direct, or through styles) to filter our empty paragraphs. It really is. But the question is: why? And no, the “Because that’s what I want” doesn’t count. Any change must make the lives easier for more people, that those whose lives will become more difficult. It must be justified by reasonable considerations. E.g., given the considerations above, my expectations could be, that maybe the empty paragraphs could become the paragraphs inside the items - if they aren’t the first paragraph, in which case, it would become a normal numbered item. Or not. It deserves discussion; but I would not expect following Word’s way, with its much more simplistic concept of a list; it would be similar to requiring Writer to follow what Notepad does.
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I was simply looking for a “Blank lines” checkbox, similar to the option found under Tools - Line Numbering. Whether this should be checked by default can be a topic of discussion. I have already prepared a lengthy list that needs to be submitted before the deadline. And I have just discovered that it is not possible to number the items due to the presence of paragraph breaks, unless one learns and uses styles. This seems like a rather clever way to enforce the use of styles! 