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Participant
March 10, 2010
Answered

Indented - Hanging Indents - with Bullets

  • March 10, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 34021 views

Greetings All,

I have found helpful discussions on how to make bulleted lists with hanging indents.  It works fine as long as the bullet is all the way to the left of the page.

I have several paragraph styles as;

  • 1.
  • 1.1
  • 1.1.1
  • 1.1.1.1

Each style is indented under the previous one.

When I try to move my bulleted list under 1.1.1.1, the 2nd line wraps way to the right as shown below:

                    - This is an example of how the 2nd line of text

                                                  wraps way out to the right.

Can anyone please help me?

Thank you,

Paul

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer

    It looks like you are trying to achieve a hanging indent where the second line text aligns with the text in the first

    line after allowing for the bullet.

    Set a paragraph left indent to any value (within reason) and the first line indent to the negative of that value.

    Then you can tweak them together to get the effect you want and save it as a style.

    k

    1 reply

    PEM_Author
    Participant
    March 10, 2010

    I should have mentioned that I want it to look like this:

                        - This is an example of how the 2nd line of text

                          wraps way out to the right

    Community Expert
    March 10, 2010

    Yes

    In the Paragraph Style Options

    You can set the Bullet to be what you want and adjust the Indent and First line indent

    (also available in the Control Bar at top and available through the Tabs Panel <window>tabs>)

    Left Indent

    and

    First Line Indent

    http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/InDesign/5.0/help.html?content=WSa285fff53dea4f8617383751001ea8cb3f-6dba.html

    PEM_Author
    Participant
    March 10, 2010

    It looks like you are trying to achieve a hanging indent where the second line text aligns with the text in the first

    line after allowing for the bullet.

    Set a paragraph left indent to any value (within reason) and the first line indent to the negative of that value.

    Then you can tweak them together to get the effect you want and save it as a style.

    k


    Thank you Ken and Eugene!!

    I have been using the Paragraph styles with some success.  Everything worked fine except for the haning indents with bullets.

    By matching the Left Indent amount with a corresponding negative value in the First Line Indent (AND) setting the Tab Position value to the same positive amount as the Left Indent amount, I am able to line up the first and following lines.

    The problem is that the bullet is all the way to the left as:

    -                                                                  This is the first line of a bullet that

                                                                       wraps around to the second line.

    -                                                                  This is the 2nd line of a bullet that

                                                                       wraps around to the second line.

    -                                                                  This is the 3rd line of a bullet that

                                                                       wraps around to the second line.

    Then I changed the value of Left Indent to 1.25 in and First Line Indent to -0.1875 and the Tab Position to 0.

    Now it works.  I played with the settings for an hour early and I don't post until I have really tortured myself.

    My approach was to do as Ken said.  Pick the left indent, apply the same negative value to First Line Indent and tweak.

    Thanks for the help.

    Paul