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.
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on June 5, 2006
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