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marciafilipa's avatar
marciafilipa
Copper Contributor
Aug 12, 2021

Numerating lines in columns

I need to number the lines. Each poem has to automatically start from row 1. As such, I have to create a section break, but if I do that, the first half of the two poems go to the first column and the rest go in the second column. I don't know what else to do. Does anyone know how to help me?
Thank you.

  • Hello marciafilipa ,

    yes, absolutelly. When I did my papers on Shelley's Prometheus, Keats, G.M. Hopkins, I needed exactly the same.

     

    Don't bother with section breaks - waaaay to many comlications. Don't even use the line numbering. Simply put the poem into a table, two columns, and insert automated numbering into the first column.

    Of course, no borders. You must have each verse in separate row, that goes without saying.

    Do that with each poem, you can restart the numbering as you wish, delete it in blank rows (blank rows are needed to separate stanzas). Each poem has its own table.

     

    If you need to, you can use captions too, use the Poems name for example, or Poet + Poem name in the caption, and make a list of references.

     

    You can play much more around than using line numbering and section breaks.

     

    I used line numbering only when I had a prose (twenty pages of text) and had to make references to lines. Tables are much more suitable for poems. Much. Much more. Including a poem of the lenght of 'The Faerie Queene'.

    Good luck.

     

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