Problem with bullet points in new install of LibreOffice

[octo]

I’ve been using LibreOffice Writer for years, since the fork, before that I was using OpenOffice. Never had a complaint about either one.

I’ve recently set up a new computer with LibreOffice 24.2.7.2, running on top of Linux Mint 22. I’ve got a problem with bullet points. In the past, I would create a bullet point, then I could shift-tab it back to the left margin, and all the other bullet points would automatically line up properly.

Now, the bullet points are created with an indent, and I cannot get them to shift-tab further left than that indent!

I use bullet points in my work constantly, and losing space by having every bullet point indented to the right causes more lines to scroll to the next line. It may seem like a minor annoyance, but it’s causing real problems in my workflow!

What I have tried already:

• Going to “Styles” (F11) and editing “List Style: Bullet”. I changed the alignment, tab stop, and indent of level 1 to 0.00", level 2 to 0.16" (the previous value of level 1), level 3 to the original value of level 2, and so on. This had no effect that I could see.
• Dragging the triangle sliders on the ruler: This moves the bullet point itself, but not the text attached to it. No good.
• Placing the cursor to the leftmost side of a line with a bullet point, and pressing [SHIFT]+[TAB] repeatedly. This worked in every copy of LibreOffice I’ve ever had. It doesn’t work anymore.
• Format → Bullets and Numbering: Manually decrease the values for “Aligned at”, “Tab stop at”, & “Indent at”, for all 10 levels. This appears to work, but I need to do it every single time, which is not sustainable. If there was a way to make this the default for every new file, that would probably work.

Thanks in advance!

[ajlittoz]

What is missing in your post is how you “create” your bullet list items. I assume you type a dash or asterisk, space and your text, relying on AutoCorrect options to turn this into a list item. This applies some default (the current one?) of Format>Bullets & Numbering. Unfortunately, this is a transposition of a very badly-defined feature of M$ Word and the implementation makes it even worse by trying to mimic Word idiosyncrasies. To add to the mess, you can’t configure a persistent default for it as you have noticed.

Your idea to customise list style Bullet • is the right one. However it does not work with AutoCorrect.

Don’t move the sliders in the ruler: you’ll introduce direct formatting and crete an unmanageable mess in your document.

Tab and Shift+Tab at start of a list item don’t change indent per se but promote (level+1) or demote (level-1) the item among the 10 possible levels of an item in the list.

Format>Bullets & Numbering apply direct formatting (which messes up your document) and can’t be configured for persistent default across sessions.

So, what is the solution?

Since you customised Bullet •, apply this style on your list item and disable the AutoCorrect option. It is not useful and proves rather harmful in the end.

To make things user-friendly, attach a keybord shortcut to Bullet • list style with Tools>Customize.

1. Start a bullet point without typing a dash, i.e. type the list item just like an ordinary paragraph
2. Before ending the item, press the keyboard shortcut for Bullet •; this automatically adds the bullet and the configured indent
3. When you hit Enter, the next paragraph is also a bullet point

To return to a standard paragraph, you need to apply No List style. To make things also user-friendly here, attach another keyboard shortcut to it.

[rsalomon]

To make it the default, make all the changes to the style you want and go to File → Templates → Save as Template, give it a name and mark it as your default template. All new documents will start with the changes you made.