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What are Bullets and Numbering ?

Bullets and numbering provide an excellent way to list and organise information in your documents.

You should use a bulleted list when you have several related items, but the order in which the reader sees them doesn't matter.

A numbered list should be used when you have several related items, but the order does matter.

Depending on the type of document you are trying to create will depend on which method is appropriate.

Two Types of Formatting

There are a number of different approaches you can use when you want to create bullets and numbering in your documents.

This whole topic can get quite complicated and extremely confusing.

Lets start by discussing a few fundamental principles to make sure we are all on the same page to start with.

There are several different types of formatting that you can apply:

Direct Formatting - This can quickly be applied by highlighting your text and using the (Format > Font) or (Format > Paragraph) dialog boxes.

The (Format > Font) dialog box handles any Character Formatting.

The (Format > Paragraph) dialog box handles any Paragraph Formatting.

Style Formatting - This can quickly be applied by highlighting your text and selecting a style either from the style drop-down or from the Styles and Formatting task pane.

Direct Formatting overwrites Style Formatting

Lets suppose we have typed a line of text in a document and we have formatted it using the default Heading 1 style.

You can apply the Heading 1 style either using the Style drop-down or the Styles and Formatting task pane.

You can check that this style has been applied successfully as the formatting of the current selection is displayed at the top of the Styles and Formatting task pane.

Highlight the whole heading and select (Format > Font) to apply italics to this heading.

You will notice that the italics are applied on top of the Heading 1 style.

This is because Direct formatting always overwrites Style formatting.

For more information about superimposing direct formatting over styles please refer to the Overlapping Styles page.

Two Types of Bullets

There are basically two different types of bullets and numbering that you can use in your documents:

Single Level Bullets - Also known as Simple numbering. When you just want to add a single level of bullets or numbering and you don't really care what they look like.

For this type you can use the Bullets and Numbering buttons on the Formatting toolbar.

You can only use single level buttons with footnotes.

Multi Level Bullets - Also known as Outline numbering. This allows you to create multi-level bullets and multi level numbering. This is confusing because it is labelled as numbering even though you can create multi level bullets.

For this type you can use the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent buttons on the Formatting toolbar.

Things to Remember

They may be times when you do not want the Automatic Bulleted Lists in which case this can be easily switched off from (Tools > AutoCorrect Options)(AutoFormat as you type tab).

When you are using the default bullets and numbered bullets the bullets and numbers wil always be the same colour as the text.

You cannot select the actuall bullets or numbers and any changes you want to make must be made using the (Format > Bullets and Numbering) dialog box.