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Q.How should I align a bulleted list when there’s more than one line of text for one or more items?
A. You can align multiple lines of bulleted text in two ways: either flush with the bullet, or indented so they align with the first line of text.
Which treatment you choose is a question of taste and your desired goal. The first option makes for a cleaner edge and blends in with the page, while the second method breaks up the text (which could be good in a text-heavy layout) and creates greater emphasis for the bulleted points.
The top example shows a flush left treatment for both bullets and text, while the bottom image shows indented text. Set in Expo Sans.
The first treatment requires no special text handling. One easy way to set hanging indents is to use your page-layout application’s “indent to here” command, which essentially creates a hanging bullet next to the text.
To use this feature, which is accessible in QuarkXPress and InDesign, place your curser in front of the character you want all other lines to align to, then press Command/ Control-backslash.
Depending on your software, there are other ways to achieve an indented bullet alignment, including InDesign’s built-in bulleted list feature. But whatever you do, don’t indent using manual line breaks and tabs, or you can wind up with huge, unsightly spaces between words if your copy is edited or reragged.
Love type? Want to know more? Ilene Strizver conducts her acclaimed Gourmet Typography workshops internationally. For more information on attending one or bringing it to your company, organization, or school, go to her site, call The Type Studio at 203-227-5929, or email Ilene at in**@***********io.com. Sign up for her e-newsletter at www.thetypestudio.com.
This article was last modified on January 8, 2022
This article was first published on July 17, 2008
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