Fixing InDesign’s Poor Auto Numbering Feature
As we mentioned in Podcast 21, InDesign CS2’s auto numbering feature isn’t exactly one of InDesign’s better-implemented features. One reader, David Finkelstein, asked us to clarify a point we made in the podcast and in researching his concern we found something even more terrifying about the feature… and a reasonably good solution for it.
First, the basics: To get auto numbering in InDesign, select one or more paragraphs and click the Numbering button in the Control palette (in paragraph mode; see Figure).
You can also choose Bullets and Numbering from the Paragraph palette or the Control palette flyout menu, which displays the Options dialog box. Note: Instead of using the menus, you can Option/Alt-click on the button in the Control palette to open the dialog box.
However, you’ll encounter problems if you try to create any kind of complex numbered list — such as comingling some paragraphs with numbers and some paragraphs with bullets — because InDesign always wants the numbered list to start over at 1 each time it encounters a “break.” For example:
- ABC
- 123
- 456
- DEF
- GHI
- JKL
At first glance, the solution appears to be to select the paragraph following the break (the one that is currently labeled #1) and use the Start At field in the Numbering Options dialog box to change its number. But as our astute listener pointed out, this causes even worse problems because you get:
- ABC
- 123
- 456
- DEF
- GHI
- JKL
The result is that you end up having to use Start At for every single paragraph in the list… a complete waste of time.
Fortunately, there is a workaround: Instead of selecting just one paragraph and assigning the Start At number, select all the paragraphs in the list (in the case above, from #2 on to the end of the list) and use Numbering Options to assign a Start At number. This tells InDesign to start this whole segment of the list at the number. Frustrating, but better than the alternatives.
In general, we’re hoping that InDesign CS3 will have a much more robust numbering feature and we won’t have to hang our heads in shame that InDesign’s numbering is far less powerful than MS Word’s.
A solution to the original problem presented in the podcast: You can add aditional paragraphs to any numbered or bulleted list by adding a soft return (shift-return). This will create a new paragraph, but it will not be numbered. You can then add space between paragraphs by increasing the leading for the first line of copy. after the soft return. Be sure to UNCHECK the “apply leading to entire paragraphs” found under Preferences: Type.
Does anyone else not like that the numbers are not right aligned? When the numbering gets into double numbers, the numbers don’t align with the periods.
Absolutely, Rita! We mentioned that trouble briefly in the podcast. There really should be a way to do that. Maybe in CS3?
All the above are a real pain, double figure numbers are not possible to right align, and I have to keep to a publisher’s new Indesign rules that state I must always use numbers and bullets. What about the lack of ability to change the baseline shift on bullets!!! I do love Indesign though…
I use Spreads in Indesign CS 2.
The bad thing is that Indesign counts the pages on a Spread twice.
But I want to count one spread as a single Page.
How can I do that?
It’s a very important feateure which is missing.
MfG
Rex
Hi: Do you know how I can import the format of an articule in word, that have a lot of numbered notes in the text, and them appeard at the end of the articule. When I see it on Word, I have numbers but when I import to InDesign the numbers of the notes change by letters. thank you
I am using the numbered list to set up consecutive numbering on gift certificates. I don’t want a separator but when I choose none a square shows up where the separator would be. I have it all set up but can’t get rid of the square. Any ideas? Or, do you know of a better way to set up consecutive numbering when I have 4 certificates to a page.
Not sure what the square would be; perhaps a missing character in that font. Here’s another post about numbering tickets.
Luis, the footnote or endnote numbering is handled by Type > Document Footnote Options.