InDesign Type: Professional Typography with Adobe InDesign, Third Edition

Chapter 11. Bullet and Number Lists

Maybe it’s a sign of our shortening attention spans, but these days we seem to want more of our information in quickly digestible points. And then there’s our need to quantify; people love lists. The top ten this, the 100 greatest that, 12-step programs, 50 ways to leave your lover, and so on. While the mechanics of creating bullets and number lists are simple enough, both types of list raise certain design issues, and both are prone to quirky problems.

Working with Lists

Before we dig deeper, here are the basics. Bullet and number lists are formatted with automated hanging indents, with either a bullet character or the number as the first (hanging) character(s).

To apply either a bulleted or numbered list ...