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I would use a combination of a table, anchored text frames, and Auto-Size.
First, I created an empty text frame and inserted a table (1 column, 3 rows; no strokes.) I set the cells to be At Least .0417″ with .0556″ top and bottom insets. Changing the top and/or bottom inset values will increase or decrease the amount of space between the text frames.
Second, I created my first text frame, and in the Text Frame Options, I selected Auto-Size: Height Only, expand/contract on the bottom of the frame.
Then, I selected that entire frame and cut it. Then, using the text tool, I put my cursor in the top cell of my table and pasted the text frame. This makes the text frame an anchored object within that cell.
Finally, I made two more text frames and put them as anchored objects in the next two cells.
The Auto-Size function of the text frames will allow them to expand/contract as you type/delete text. The table cells will likewise expand/contract as each text frame gets larger or smaller.
This actually allowed me to do some interesting things with the anchored object text frames. When I rotated one so that it was taking up more vertical space, the cell that was holding it expanded, maintaining the correct amount of space between frames.
However, things started to fall apart when I went into the Anchored Object Options and set its position to “Custom.” This allowed me to drag the text frame outside of the visible boundaries of the table… but the cell stopped reacting to the size of the text frame.
You said this was a pressing issue, so you may not need an answer anymore, but just in case…
Here’s how I did it.
I created three paragraph styles.
Style Name: Numbered List – Normal
This is just a basic numbered list paragraph style. Make sure that you create a new list, because you’ll need to use this same list in each of the three styles you create. (I called mine “My list”.)
In the “Number” field, I used ^#.^> which inserts an en space after the period.
Ok, now for the trickery.
I created a second paragraph style called Numbered List – Group
This paragraph style needs to be identical to your “Numbered List – Normal” (same basic character formats, font, size, color, etc.) It also used “My list” and the Mode is set to “Continue from Previous Number”. The only difference with this style is for your “Number” field, use ^# ^= (That’s your number, then a space, then an en dash, then another space.)
I created a third paragraph style called Numbered List – Invisible
As you can see, with this paragraph style, I set the font size to .1 pt, leading = 0 pt, character color = none. This is going to stack any paragraphs that use this style into an invisible pile, all on one line.
Then, in the Bullets and Numbering tab, I again used “My list”, I left the “Number” field alone… it doesn’t matter what you have here because it will all be invisible anyway… and I set the Character Style to a Character Style I created called “Invisible.” (This is what’s going to make the numbers themselves vanish.)
Ok, if you have all of those styles set up, the easiest way to work with this would be in Story Editor… because some of your lines are going to be invisible on the page.
Here’s what things are going to look like in the Story Editor:
As you can see, lines 1 and 2 use Numbered List – Normal.
On line 3, I had to fake the range by starting off the line with “5. Family”. I applied Numbered List – Group to that line.
Then, I want lines 4 and 5 to be invisible, so I applied Numbered List – Invisible to those lines.
Then, items 6 and 7 are back to normal. And I do the sequence again starting with Numbered List – Group on line 8 and Numbered List – Invisible on lines 9 through 11.
The result is exactly what you wanted:
Voila. You have a live list that has the appearance of using ranges for some of the items, when in fact it is just hiding some of the items.
Thank you for your reply. I knew that I was correct, I just wanted to get some backup for my argument.
