Forum Discussion
List bullets redefining their own left-indents somehow (tables, multi-level lists)
There is some weird interaction with tables and muti-level lists that I run into intermittently.
It has happened twice tonight.
Essentially, I have a List Bullets styles 1-5 which indent in an orderly, style-conforming way when I press alt-shift-L/RArrow. I followed the tutorial that always gets linked to on forums like these for defining this.
These list bullets left-indent in increments of 0.25". So List Bullet = 0", List Bullet 2 = 0.25", List Bullet 3 = 0.5", etc.
When I am inserting and (un)indenting these inside tables, eventually I will notice that the indents aren't looking right. I will check the styles and (in this instance), List Bullet 2 is suddenly 0.47".
At no point have I deliberately altered a style definition. In fact, I have "mark formatting inconsistencies" turned on, and will periodically select anything that deviates from rigid style conformity and clear direct formatting at both the paragraph and character level. I am really trying to do Word right.
I can't even begin to understand why these styles would redefine themselves, but I'm somewhat convinced it has something to do with tables. It seems that whenever I use anything that involves nesting of some kind within a table, my document becomes "haunted" and nondeterministic. I long ago found out to NEVER use style headings in tables, as that seems to be even worse at filling my document with poltergeists.
Why would my list bullet styles ever, ever redefine themselves like this?
I can handle some MS quirks if I can select everything and hit ctrl-q and ctrl-space to restore order. But I don't know how to approach this.
3 Replies
You have to define all indents for multilevel lists in the Multilevel List dialog box. If you change the indentation in the Paragraph dialog box, the settings from the Multilevel List dialog will return sooner or later. See the article at https://shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/numbering20072010.html.
Oh, I see. I thought setting up the multilevel list was a one-and-done. You're right, I had been making small adjustments to the individual list bullets themselves.
Since we're on the topic: so, all the bullets "inherit" from the mutli-level list style (in this case "listBullets"). But I've also got list bullets 2-5 inheriting/"based on" the first List Bullet. Is that best practice?
Are you referring to style inheritance, meaning the fact that a paragraph style can be based on another paragraph style? That should usually not cause any trouble with regards to multilevel numbering.
