Episode: 1385
Title: HPR1385: LibreOffice 16 Writer Nested Lists Controlled via Styles
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1385/hpr1385.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 00:37:07

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Hello, this is Ahuka. Welcome to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio and our
ongoing series on Libra Office. Focusing as we have been for a while now on Libra Office
writer. And there's just so much to talk about here, but I do want to say my intention
is whenever we finish with writer do move on to Calc and then to impress and maybe even get at
least an honorable mention for the other components of Libra Office, but those three in particular
we're going to give some detailed look at. And as I said last time, I want to repeat this that
everything that I do in these tutorials is written out with screenshots and examples and things
at my website, which is www.ahuka.com. So that's a resource that you have as well. And I know that some
of this stuff can be a little bit tricky. So it might help you to know that you can go see
something written out and use that as a reference. And I know one or two people have told me they've
already figured that out. So with that, what are we going to do today? Well, last time we took a
look at nested lists. And we took a look at the buttons in the bulletin numbering toolbar and
the various buttons on that, concepts of promote and demote and why that's different from
increase or decrease indent. We looked at how we can move things up or down in the list and change
the numbering when that happened and insert and unnumbered item and things like that. All very useful
things. But what we want to do now is we want to get back to styles because that's really where
the greatest payoff comes. And the distinction that we want to make is the functional
definitions, promote and demote our functional kinds of things. But when we talk about styles,
what we can do is combine the functional working of nested lists with appearance. So really,
what we're going to be doing here is we're going to be saying if you're working with nested lists
to get the functional results, you must use the bullets and numbering toolbar. That's the only
way you're going to make any sense out of this stuff. But if you combine that with a style for your
nested lists, what you can do is you can now control the appearance very, very precisely. And
between the functional control and the appearance, you pretty much control just about everything you
want to do here. So the key concept for working with the style here on a nested list is that you
control each level of the hierarchy separately. There are three tabs you can use for this purpose.
The first one is the outline tab. Now this has a number of pre-configured hierarchies,
and you may note that it includes nested bullet lists and even mixed hierarchies that have both
numbered and bulleted levels. And you can select one of these by just clicking on it until there's
a thick black line around it, and then clicking the apply button. Now, again, once you've applied
that style, remember you have to use the promo demote buttons off of that bullets and numbering
toolbar in order to properly put each element into the level that it's supposed to be in.
So if you want to make something a level two item in the middle of a list of what was so far level
one, doesn't matter what is in your style thing if you haven't used that demote button to say
take this level one item and make it a level two. And once you do that, it'll take a look at the
style information and say, ah, that's how you want level two items to look. Gotcha boss. And then
everyone will be happy. So the outline thing gives you really a lot of pre-configured
things that may or may not suit your needs. So we're going to see how we can do some other things as well.
But the next tab I want to look at is the position tab. Now, we looked at the position tab fairly
carefully when we looked at individual bullet and numbering styles. And remember we deconstructed
a bullet style. We deconstructed a numbered list style. And now we're going to look at nested lists.
And this imposes some additional considerations on us. The controls are the same, but now you have
to start thinking multi-level a little bit. And I would say the rule of good design here,
at least I think this is generally going to produce the best results in the most circumstances,
is to be consistent for all of your levels. So if the first tab stop was two tenths of an inch
from the margin, make the second one four tenths of an inch from the margin, and the third one six
tenths of an inch from the margin. And maintain consistent increments. That's the kind of thing we
mean by being consistent. Now, if you take a look at this position tab and on the left we've got
the level window and it's got one, two, three, four. So we can go and take a look at each item
individually. But there's a thing at the bottom that says one dash ten. And if you click that,
something very interesting happens. You will see that only two things are really displayed.
The first one is numbering followed by, and the second one is numbering alignment.
Well, that's a good way to consistently manage how all of these levels are positioned.
Okay. So if you say numbering is followed by a tab stop,
all of your levels are going to have a tab stop. And if you say that the numbering alignment is always
going to be left, in other words, we'll start at the left margin and then work right
with everything lining up to that left margin, then we're going to do it for all of them. So again,
consistent. And then taking a look at the individual ones, just make sure. And the faults are going to be
pretty good here, but there are times when you want to change them. So I would say I always set mine
to tab stop for the numbering followed by. And I always say numbering alignment is left.
And then if I go through each of the levels, remember what we talked about before when we looked
at individual bullet and number lists, there's this thing called tab stop and indent at.
Now the tab stop for each level is going to be slightly different. So for instance, level one,
it might be two tenths of an inch level, two might be four tenths of an inch, or point three nine,
or you know, I'm not sure why they went to point three nine instead of point four. Oh, it doesn't matter.
But for each level, make sure the tab stop and indent at are the exact same number. And that means
each level of the hierarchy, whether it's a level one, a level two, level three, whatever.
If your list item is more than one line, when it wraps around, it'll wrap around with everything
very neatly aligned, at least on the left side of the item. So that's the first thing that we're
going to look at. The second thing I would say is whatever the increment is from one level to
the next, keep it the same. So you might take a look and say, well, you know, I want, I want level one
to be three tenths of an inch instead of two tenths of an inch. Well, if you then left level two
at point three nine inches, it would really look stupid. And particularly of level three was
then point five nine inches. That just doesn't make any sense because it's inconsistent. So if you're
going to do three tenths of an inch, then make the next one six tenths of an inch, make the one
after that nine tenths of an inch. And that way you've got a nice consistent look. Everything moves
over the same amount going from level to level to level. And that's good. That's going to give you
the best possible appearance. Now, the last tab is options. And this is where we get into how the
text appears on each of these levels. And by text, what I'm referring to really is the text of the
number itself, not the stuff that follows it is the list item. So the characters that denote each
of these levels, that can be set here. And we can set each level separately. So we'll start level one.
And look at the first setting, numbering. This lets you specify the numbering style. And you've got
options. You've got Arabic numerals, Roman numerals, letters. You could have bullets. You can choose
graphics for the bullets if you wish. And remember, we can do this separately for each level. You could
have numbers on one level, bullets on the next, and a different numbering on the third. I'm not
exactly sure where I would do something like that, although I could imagine some sort of a mixed
thing going on. Remember, if you're doing this, that the decision as to whether to use bullets or
numbers is whether or not the order matters. If the order is significant, if things have to go one,
two, three in that order to make any sense, then you've got to use numbers. If it's just a collection
of stuff, and the order doesn't matter at all, you know, milk, eggs, and butter,
all the things I have to pick up at the store, and I don't really care which order that list is in.
I think then bullets would be the appropriate thing to use, okay? Now, bullets.
If you select a bullet in the drop-down for numbering, a setting box will appear that says character.
And this is where you choose the character that you'll use for your bullet. Now, you can choose
any character from any font, but let's face it, if you chose like the letter Q, it'd be a very
odd bullet list, Q, this, and then Q, the next one, Q, Q, Q. So you want something that actually looks
like a bullet. Now, where do you find that? The dingbats font, all right? The dingbats is sort of the
open equivalent of wingedings, but you know, it's got a lot of interesting characters that you can
use. So if you want a full nested bullet list, and you know, having one of those available,
it's not a bad idea, just choose different characters for each level. So one level might be
just a black dot. The next level might be an arrowhead and the level after that, you know,
some other character, a diamond, let us say, you know, whatever you want those to be.
Now, the next thing we're going to look at in the options is before and after.
Now, these show up if you have selected a number type, they don't show up for bullets.
So any number type, if it's an Arabic numerals, Roman numerals, letters,
these let you place other characters either before or after the number. And you just type them
in with a keyboard. So let's say you wanted the number to be enclosed in parentheses.
Well, in the before space, you would type an opening parenthesis mark. And then in the after space,
you would type a closing parenthesis mark. And then your number would be enclosed by parentheses.
Or let's say you just want a period after the number. Leave the before space blank. Don't put
anything in there. And then put a period in the after space. It doesn't have to be a period,
you could substitute, you could say, let's make it a dash. Or let's make it a blank space first,
and then a dash. All right, if you did that, then each of your list items would be a number,
then a space, then a dash. So you've got a lot of possibilities here.
Now, note that if you're doing all of that, you might want to make an adjustment for your tab stop.
Right, the more the more business you have going on in setting up the numbers here,
the more you need to make sure you leave an appropriate space before the actual text of the item starts.
Now, then there's the character style box. Remember character styles? We've talked about them.
And we talked about how if you use the bold button or the italic button, you're doing it wrong.
You want to use character styles instead. And we can bring those in here. Those character styles
can be used for your numbers or letters that you use for your numbered list.
So, let's say you wanted your level one items just be a number followed by a period that's
a very straightforward thing. But you could, for instance, say, well, I want to make
those numbers bold. So a bold one period. A bold two period. Well, then what you have to use is
the character style for strong emphasis. And you would apply that. And then you would get a bold
one, a bold two. Now, that would just apply to the number itself. It would not apply
to the actual text of the list item. That would still be governed by the rest of your styles.
Or you could say, I'd like to have something italic. Well, the character style for that is emphasis.
So you simply apply that. And I think the best way to get an idea is to try a few of these.
And one of the things I do when I'm working with all of these, and I want to get a,
this is how I first started to get a handle on all of this, was just open up a document and
start applying different things and start typing and see how it worked. And that's a good way to go,
okay, now I see what they're talking about. And particularly when we're getting at this level of
things, this is where how things are done can be different from one program to another.
So some of this stuff is a little bit different in Microsoft Word than it would be in Libra
Office and, you know, terminologies different, et cetera. So it's a good way to get a handle on
on how this is done. I think you've got just as much control with any of these programs,
but how you do it can vary a little bit. Now, the next thing that we might want to look at here
in using our styles for a nested list is the show sub levels. It's this really useful thing.
When you need it, you really need it. Now, when do you need it? I've used it for contracts,
for instance. Contracts, this is a type of numbering that is required for clauses.
So your level one item would be let's imagine one period, a little bit of white space and then
the text blah blah blah. And then the next level one item is two period, a little bit of white
space blah blah blah. And you say, okay, now I want to have a sub list under that.
So you do your next item and now you click the Demote button on the bullets and numbering bar
and the Demote button says, take this item and make it a level two now.
And if you had show sub levels, you might get something like this,
two dot a and then a space and then your text, two dot b and then a space and then your text.
And then they'll say under that you wanted to create some level three and you could have two
dot b dot i for your first level three and then two dot b dot i i, you know, using Roman numerals
for the level three part for the next part of that. And so on. So it's very useful when you need it.
And this is how you get that. Now, one of the things they say when you're setting this up is
how many levels to show. I always select the maximum of 10.
And that's because if I do anything else, I'm leaving myself open to
unexpected results. Now, it's never going to display more sub levels than you actually have.
So don't worry that you're going to have a list that only has level one and level two,
but it's going to do one dot zero dot zero dot zero dot zero dot zero dot zero because it thinks
it has to fill up 10 spaces. It doesn't work that way. Okay. So if it's if you're just on level one
and it'd be one dot. And then if you have a sub list on writ one dot a and then your text. So it
doesn't fill those things out. But what would happen if you said, oh, it just only show three levels
and you somehow get to level four anyway. It's going to start truncating the numbers from the
beginning, which is a weird way of doing it. So I think setting the maximum is actually pretty safe.
I mean, that becomes the set at once and forget it option. And I think when you're working with
styles, anytime you can set it once and forget it, that's not a bad thing to do, right?
Now, the last two items, I would say ignore them. There might be times where this becomes relevant.
They are very rare. For instance, start at changes to starting number.
It might be useful for a specific list, but it doesn't make sense in a style,
generally speaking. At least I'm having trouble thinking of of when I would want to do that.
I mean, would you want to start a numbered list with three?
That's what that would do, but I'm not sure why I would do that in a style.
I might do that if I had a, you know, a long list with interruptions and it's like, okay,
this is actually number three, but the program has forgotten where I was, so I need to tell it.
But that's not a style thing. That would be something I would probably do outside the style.
Consecutive numbering, it just, it does bizarre things to the hierarchy that, again,
I have trouble seeing many cases where I'd want to use that.
So that's how you would do nested lists and control all your nested lists with styles.
So the, again, the basic thing we're looking at here, and it's a recurring theme,
and we're going to come back to it over and over again as we go through the Libra Office series,
is the separation between function and appearance.
There are two different things.
So in a, particularly in a numbered list, the function is to say, is this a level one item?
Is it a level two item? Is it a level three item? You control that through the bullets and
numbering bar using the Promote and Demote buttons. That's how you control the function.
Appearance, you should control through the style. So you set up a style for
your, your list, your nested list hierarchy.
And doing that, you get in and say, well, this is the font I want to use, and this is how I want to,
you know, make it bold or italic or change the spacing or put an extra character in or all of that.
You know, that's all done through the style. So with that, I think we've now got a pretty good
handle on nested lists. And that's a good thing. So this is a hookah, and I am signing off once
again, and I'm going to remind everyone, please support free software. Thank you.
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