Newbie here. Just load 7.1.5.2 and trying to shake off years of MS Word.
It is not clear to me how to modify the default styles and save them to created numbered paragraphs in which numbers are left aligned, followed by a period and space, then text. For example, 1. Text… 1.1. Text… 1.1.1. Text.
No need to create a table of contents.
Thanks!
Do you want to create a numbered list or a document outline (akin to chapter numbering)?
These are two different things, handled by two different mechanisms.
Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you on my original question. I was swamped by work and used MS Word because I understand its numbering style. I’m just now getting back to trying to transition from Word.
I need to number paragraphs using numbered lists not document outlining. The resulting documents have a mixture of unnumbered section headings, unnumbered paragraphs, and heirachically numbered paragraphs that are aligned relative to the text they follow as shown below:
A Heading
A blah-blah paragraph.
Startled by the sudden noise, the quick brown fox woke up from its nap and jumped over the sleeping dog.
1.1. Startled by the sudden noise, the quick brown fox woke up from its nap and jumped over the sleeping dog.
1.1.1. Startled by the sudden noise, the quick brown fox woke up from its nap and jumped over the sleeping dog.
More stuff.
I have no problem manually creating the various paragraph formats needed, but I have no clue how to save the format of the heirachically numbered levels as an alternate style (e.g., @Tiered_Numbering) so that I can apply the numbering whenever needed.
Thanks
Salt
What you need is to define a numbered list. Formatting a numbered list requires both a paragraph style and a list style (badly names because it describes only the counter and the left alignment).
A paragraph style semantically indicates the “value” of the text: running narrative (then Text Body style – not *Default Paragraph Style as is the rule under M$ Word because styles in Writer are organised hierarchically and inherit from ancestors; *Default Paragraph Style is used only to define your preferred defaults and should never be used to format text), comment, note, quotation, … See that names never describe the look of the contents.
In your case, you can use paragraph style Numbering 1 for your list. You’ll associate it with list style Numbering 123 in the Outline & List tab of the style definition.
In Writer all list are multi-level. The list style controls up to 10 nested levels. You’ll have to customise Numbering 123 to fit your specification.
To access list styles, enable the style sidepane (if not already visible Styles>Manage Styles or F11 if you aren’t under MacOS where it is intercepted by the OS). Click on the 5 small icon in the pane toolbar.
Right-click on Numbering 123 and Modify. You’ll play with Position and Customise tabs. DON’T USE THE OTHERS as they will reset all your customisation.
In Customise, modify Show sublevels so that full numbering is shown on all levels. Do that on each level or select 1-10 and set the parameter to 10.
A list style takes over the left indent of the paragraph style. The Position tab will allow you to indent your levels relative to each other. Since you seem to prefer to align your numbers with the indent of the paragraph above, this requires to change the default distances.
Your parameters of interest are Aligned at, Tab stop at and Indent at. Keep left Number alignment and Numbering followed by tab stop.
Aligned at defines the position where the number starts. Indent at is the distance for the left limit of the list item text. To have nice multi-line items, set tab stop and indent to the same value.
At level 1, Aligned at is equal to the Before text indent of the unnumbered paragraph above your list. This is usually 0 cm. Set the indent so that your widest number can be set inside this distance.
At level 2, set Aligned at equal to level 1 indent (more generally at level n, set alignment equal to level n-1 indent). Set indent so that your widest number can be laid out between align and indent without causing a spurious tab jump.
And so on for higher levels.
Note that since you display all level numbers, your numbers become wider and wider with level. So, the 1 cm space of level 1 is probably too small at higher levels.
When you want to type a list item, just apply the paragraph style, the associated list style automatically takes care of the number. To promote your list item at a higher level, press Tab at the very beginning of the item. To demote it press, Shift+Tab.
For an unnumbered item, press Bksp at the very first position of the item. This suppresses the number, keeping the indent.