Decimal Align Numbered Lists
Abbe wrote:
I like to use InDesign’s auto-numbering feature, but don’t see a way to decimal align the numbers when they reach double digits. When my numerals exceed 9, I stop using the feature and start setting tabs. Am I missing something?
You are missing something, but it’s very easy to see why — it’s not at all obvious how to do this. Here’s a sample of a numbered list. As you pointed out, the decimal points are not lined up:
decalign1
Let’s look at the paragraph style that defines this numbered list:
decalign2
See that Alignment pop-up menu? (This is a CS3 feature.) If you set that to Right, the numbers should all line up along the right-most character (in this case, the decimal point, or period), right? Yes. But it only works if (emphasize “IF!”) that would not push any of the text out of the frame to the left. InDesign won’t allow that text to hang out of the frame (at least not without severe trickery).
So what is to be done? Increase the left indent and/or decrease the first line indent, so that all the text moves in a bit:
decalign3
That allows the numbers to have enough breathing room that they can fit in that little margin area:
decalign4
Nice on! One of those thing I didn’t have to use to present day so didn’t realize this to work this way. Now I know!
Aha! I have struggled with this very issue in the last weeks, cursing mightily! I shall implement it right away in sever files. So thanks a LOT, David!
You know, I knew how to get the numbers aligned correctly (it was in one of my CS3 video workshop tutorials in fact) but I was never quite sure of the voodoo involved with the indenting, that is, exactly why you had to enter a left indent so high … ah-ha! … thanks!
Sweet little trick there. Do the paragraph’s tab settings define the indents’ values, are they always the same, or is there some other mysterious force involved there?
Maybe worth sharing: yesterday I had to make a ‘checklist’ for a customer. To get the checkboxes in the lists I made a paragraph style with a bulleted list defined. The bullet style was a Webdings square, and I then increased the font’s leading so the squares wouldn’t be attached.
It’s far easier than manually aligning boxes, especially when the customer’s as indecisive as mine was
Note that someone emailed me asking why this didn’t work in CS2… it’s because it’s a CS3 feature. I have now added a mention of that in the post above.
Hi David,
It’s nice to hear this option, but I am using CS2 only, what I have to do in this case.
Yuvaraj, you would have to place a tab before the number and use a decimal align tab.