Automatically Numbering Items and Bullet Points

Entering Numbers and Automatic Bulleted Lists

* Before typing, you can use the shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + L

* Before and after typing:

Method 1:

1. Go to Format Bullets and Numbering…

2. A Bullets and Numbering dialog box will appear, detailing the options within this box as follows:

a. Bulleted: The bullet character is a special character:

* Click the Customize… button to modify the bullet character format, which will open a new Customize Bulleted List dialog:

• Button Character…: Choose a different character for the bullet point.
• Button Picture…: Choose a different image for the bullet point.
• Indent at : Adjust the spacing of the bullet character from the margin.
• Text position: The starting position of the text character display.
  • Tab space after: The space between the first line of the paragraph and the margin, but the text character does not exceed the automatic character placement.
  • Indent at : The space for lines that are not the first line of the paragraph relative to the margin, this space can exceed the automatic character placement beyond the margin.
• Select OK to accept the changes, or Cancel to return to the Bulleted tab.

b. Numbered: The bullet character is a number:

* Click the Customize… button to modify the number character format, which will open a new Customize Numbered List dialog:

• Number format: Click the Font… button to choose a different font format for the numbered bullet.
• Number Style: Choose the numbering style (1, 2, 3, or a, b, c, or I, II, III,…)
• Start at: The starting number from (default is 1)
• Number position: The alignment format can be left, center, or right.
• Text position: The starting position of the text character display.
  • Tab space after: The space between the first line of the paragraph and the margin, but the text character does not exceed the automatic character placement.
  • Indent at : The space for lines that are not the first line of the paragraph relative to the margin, this space can exceed the automatic character placement beyond the margin.
• Select OK to accept the changes, or Cancel to return to the Numbered tab.

c. Outline Numbered: The bullet character of paragraphs will be displayed in a hierarchical format:

* Click the Customize… button to modify the outline numbering format, which will open a new Customize Outline Numbered List dialog:

• Level: The display level of the automatic numbering.
• Number format: The format of the numbering.
• Number style: Choose the numbering style (1, 2, 3…; a, b, c…; I, II, III,…)
• Start at: The starting point for automatic numbering.
• Previous level number: The level number displayed before the automatic numbering. This level is always one less than the Level.
• Button Font…: Format the font for the automatic numbering.
• Number position: The alignment format can be left, center, or right with the margin being Aligned at.
• Text position: The starting position of the text character display.
  • Tab space after: The space between the first line of the paragraph and the margin, but the text character does not exceed the automatic character placement.
  • Indent at : The space for lines that are not the first line of the paragraph relative to the margin, this space can exceed the automatic character placement beyond the margin.
• Select OK to accept the changes, or Cancel to return to the Numbered tab.

d. List Styles: Create additional custom bullet styles:

– Click the Add… button to create additional automatic numbering styles

– Button Modify… to edit an existing style

– Button Delete… to remove an existing automatic numbering style.

Notification dialog: “Do you want to delete this formatting style?”

+ Yes: Agree
+ No: Cancel the deletion.

3. Click the OK button on the Bullets and Numbering dialog to complete the automatic numbering.

Method 2:

Select (highlight) the sections of text that you want to apply numbering or bullet points to, then click the icon (automatic numbering) and the icon (automatic bullet) on the Formatting toolbar.

After installing Office, Word typically defaults to using automatic numbering and bullet points. This means that when a line starts with a character or number (-, *, 1, I, b,…) and you press Enter to move to the next line, MS Word will automatically switch to the mode of auto-filling the bullet or number for that line.

To disable automatic bullet or numbering:

1. Go to ToolsAutoCorrect Options…

2. A dialog box will appear, select the AutoFormat tab

Uncheck the options (*):
– *  Automatic bulleted lists.
– *  Other paragraph styles.

3. Select the AutoFormat As You Type tab

Uncheck the options (*):
– *  Automatic bulleted lists.
– *  Automatic numbered lists.

4. Click the OK button to finish

At this point, when a line starts with a character or number (-, *, 1, I, b,…) and you press Enter to move to the next line, MS Word will no longer switch to the automatic bullet or numbering mode but will treat it as a character.