A recent FrameMaker student contacted me with a numbering dilemma:
I am working with a two-level list. The first level uses numbers and the second list uses letters. The numbers start out correctly, as do the letters; but when I go back to numbers, things get wacky. What is going on? Here's what my list looks like:
The obvious problem is that the numbers are increasing incorrectly, but why? The numbered list is picking up from where the lettered list left off. The letter "e" is the fifth letter of the alphabet. When FrameMaker sees the <n+> in the next paragraph, it adds one to the counter value and displays a 6.
The trick is to look at the numbers as columns. I'll sketch them out on paper. This one is fairly straightforward and just needs two columns of building blocks along with the series label. Here's how numbering properties should look for each of these paragraph formats:
Series Label. The series label tells FrameMaker that these two paragraph formats are part of the same numbering series. While I used S for a series of steps, any uppercase letter will work as a Series Label.
List 123. The <n+>. building block in the first column will add one to the current counter and display the result as a number followed by a period. The < =0> building block resets the second column counter back to 0 for each new sub-list, but the space says not to show the 0.
List abc. The < > holds the counter value in the first column (it won't increment), but the space says not to display the value. The <a+>. in the second column adds one to the current counter value (which was reset to 0 in the previous paragraph) and displays the result as a letter.
The result?
Note: Setting up just these two tags assumes you are using another paragraph to restart the numeric counter. For more information on restarting lists, see "Adobe FrameMaker: How to Restart a Numbered List."
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