Multilevel lists are an often overlooked RoboHelp feature... a shame because multilevel lists are very powerful. As the name suggests, Multilevel lists allow you to create complex lists with multiple levels. For example: consider what you would have to do if you need a list that uses upper alphanumeric characters on the first level, lower roman on the second level and bullets on the third level.
You can achieve the numbering scheme shown above by using a standard numbered list, but you would need to assign the correct list styling to every list level. That's a lot of manual labor. And it's not easy to quickly change the list style, especially if you've applied the style manually across multiple topics.
With multilevel lists, you create a single style that can be used in multiple topics throughout a RoboHelp project. And best of all: you control everything through the style sheet, allowing you to change all the multilevel lists in a central location.
In this article I will show you how to create and use a multilevel list. I will focus on the basic settings first. With these basic settings you can use Multilevel Lists in your projects. In a future article I will show you some cool things you can do with multilevel lists.
Create a Multilevel List
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Decrease Indent tools.

You can achieve the numbering scheme shown above by using a standard numbered list, but you would need to assign the correct list styling to every list level. That's a lot of manual labor. And it's not easy to quickly change the list style, especially if you've applied the style manually across multiple topics.
With multilevel lists, you create a single style that can be used in multiple topics throughout a RoboHelp project. And best of all: you control everything through the style sheet, allowing you to change all the multilevel lists in a central location.
In this article I will show you how to create and use a multilevel list. I will focus on the basic settings first. With these basic settings you can use Multilevel Lists in your projects. In a future article I will show you some cool things you can do with multilevel lists.
Create a Multilevel List
- On the Project Manager pod, double-click your style sheet to open the Styles dialog box.
- In the Styles dialog box, right-click Multilevel Lists and chooseNew.
- Enter a name for your list style and press [enter].
- From the Apply Formatting To drop-down menu, choose Level 1.
- From the Paragraph Style drop-down menu, choose a paragraph style. (I recommend using the Normal style so that the list uses the default topic formatting.)
- From the List Style drop-down menu, choose a list style. (In my example I chose upper-alpha.)
- Return to the Apply Formatting To drop-down menu and select and format other levels as needed. (In the sample list pictured at at the beginning of this article, I formatted the first three levels.)
- When finished, click the OK button to save your changes.
The Multilevel list is now set up and ready to use.
Apply a Multilevel List To Topic Text
- Open a topic and select some text.
- Click the Create a Multilevel List tool.
- Select your Multilevel List in the Available Lists Styles field and then click the OK button.

Decrease Indent tools.


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As a bonus, multi-level lists in RoboHelp can be mapped to multi-level lists in Word. You can set up Word to have the same appearance or something different for print. If others take your Word document for further processing, the lists will be proper lists rather than something that looks like a list but is just some indented paragraphs with numbers.
The only downside is that unlike single level lists, you cannot use images for bullets.
Posted by: Peter Grainge | September 22, 2014 at 07:58 AM