Inspiring

Answered

Any workaround to numbers & bullets hijacking tabs and hanging indents?

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
October 8, 2025
6 replies
1818 views

It appears that bullets and numbers have been implemented by hijacking tabs and indents. As far as I can tell, this makes it impossible to do a hanging indent as you see fit.

So now, to get lines of text after the first one to show up with a hanging indent, I have to put a hard return at the end of the first line and create a whole other style for subsequent lines. Lame, to say the least. Am I overlooking some other option? And no... tables are not an option for us.

In this screen grab, the examples at the top show what the text needs to look like. The underline is created by a tab with a leading _ character. The apparent hanging indent is accomplished with the hard returns. The one I'm working on shows why:

How to

Correct answer Dave Creamer of IDEAS

You might find it easier to:

1) Use the Indent To Here character - that way you don't have to specify a hanging indent in the paragraph style

2) Use an underlined tab instead of a tab with a leader

Assuming my example is what the OP is looking for, just use simular numbers to the ones I used. That will get you in the general "ballpark". With preview on, modify as needed.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

So what you want is the Numbered list to define the first tab position in a paragraph style. In my example, notice how the left, first, and tab position are defined:

Then, in Tabs section of the paragraph style, notice the second defined tab that makes the underscore:

This second tab has underscore characters defined in it. There are no other tabs defined in the paragraph style.

It is true that the Tabs panel is small and too fussy to aim your mouse at. Ever since PageMaker 1.2 it has been too small and fussy. And yes, the left indent (which you can shift-drag, btw) must equal the tab position, it cannot be ahead of the tab, or else it nullifies the tab. This is not a bug. To delete an existing tab, drag it downwards. I avoid using the Tabs panel by defining a paragraph style, and defining distances in the paragraph style options dialog box.

Mike Witherell

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Thomas_CalvinAuthor

Inspiring

Yes, it turns out that there's a bug where the first tab (or its leader) will not work if the hanging indent is set to the right of the first tab stop (or possibly equal to it; not sure):

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

To get the initial hanging indent, simply "push" the left indent in, then "pull" the first line out (with a negative number). InDesign automatically sets the tab. (Tabs are almost always the same as the left indent.)

The line tab and the spacer tab need to be set under tabs, with the line tab using a underscore as a leader character. These two tabs need to be entered manually.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

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Thomas_CalvinAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks. I did enter the line and spacer tabs manually.

So far no one has been able to work around the problem, which is the hanging indent messing up the tabs on the first line. Look at your #2; it's not correct. "Create" is not lined up with "when." The hanging indent needs to be to the right of the underline.

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Thomas_CalvinAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for the reply, but the paragraph marker in that list item is not stray:

"...to get lines of text after the first one to show up with a hanging indent, I have to put a hard return at the end of the first line and create a whole other style for subsequent lines."

You can do this with two styles if you want, but you don't have to. One style, with one paragraph, will achieve what I think you're trying to do. (I added "I think" there deliberately; if I'm misreading your intentions, I'd certainly want to see what I have interpreted incorrectly.) So the hard return is, strictly speaking, unnecessary, even if it's intentional. I've attached the INDD I used for the screenshot.

Yes, it turns out that there's a bug where the first tab (or its leader) will not work if the hanging indent is set to the right of the first tab stop (or possibly equal to it; not sure):

I don't think that is a bug. Looks like it's functioning as designed. The hanging indent marker acts as a tab stop. So when, in your video, you are dragging the tab marker across the hanging indent marker, and the text in your live preview aligns with your hanging indent marker, because it's the next "tab stop."

What you can't do here is add a tab leader to the hanging indent marker. You've dragged the tab with the underscore to the right of the hanging indent marker, so no tab leader is applied.

Thanks for the reply. I don't think the hanging indent should function as a tab stop on the first line, because it's expressly supposed to dictate what happens after the first line.

Regardless, the workaround is to make sure the first tab stop is slightly left of the hanging indent.

There are quite a few problems with the Tabs UI. There's no way to delete a tab in the style's tabs, first of all. This is a huge PITA because this laughably bad UI gives you about one pixel to hit in order to drag a tab or indent instead of adding a new tab. When you accidentally add a new one (and you will), you lose all your work in this dialog because there's no way to delete it.

And in fact you can add a leader to the hanging indent; it just doesn't do anything.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Thomas,

You do have tab disagreement. Get rid of all the other tabs that are defined and content yourself with defining just the one that coincides with the hanging indent distance.

Mike Witherell

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Thomas_CalvinAuthor

Inspiring

I don't know what you think is a "disagreement," but I can't just get rid of all the other tabs. Where is the line going to come from, then?

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi Thomas,

You can set tiabs in the tabs section of the paragraph style or in the bullets n numbering section of the paragraph style. They should agree. IOW, do one or the other (or both as long as they agree). Don't allow the definition to disagree.

Mike Witherell

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Thomas_CalvinAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks Mike. I don't think they can disagree; if you manipulate them in the numbering area, they change in the tabs area (if I remember correctly).

The problem remains, though: The functionality is broken, because the hanging-indent setting is messing up the tabs on the first line (which the hanging indent should have nothing to do with). Try to create the layout I show in the screen grab.

jmlevy

Community Expert

See screen grab below

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Thomas_CalvinAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks! But that's pretty similar to what I have. It doesn't look like you have any tabs in your text, so this isn't re-creating my situation. Those settings don't deliver the correct result.

jmlevy

Community Expert

Hi @Thomas_Calvin Maybe I don't understand what you need but I can't see what prevent you to set a paragraph style as below:

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