Instead of first-line indents, I prefer using space above and below. But I’m having trouble visualizing how the text underneath headings should align.
If I use a tiered numbering system, how should the text underneath the headings and subheadings align?
If I use bullets or numbers for a list underneath text, should the bullets be indented or in line with the text above?
I would align the text underneath a heading to the left edge of the heading number, or the left edge of the heading text. Because the heading number can be variable length, it’s probably simpler in practice to align to the left edge.
So in your sample, I think the paragraph under heading 1. (“When the government …”) seems well aligned. But the paragraph under heading 1.1 (“We have data …”) seems misaligned.
Either way is fine. Though I prefer aligning bullets to the left edge of the preceding paragraph, because I think it looks tidier, and conserves the rightward drift of the left margin. Legal writers in particular get into trouble with excessive indenting.
The rightward-drift-of-the-left-margin struggle is real. I arm-wrestled a similar problem–list of bullet points followed by a new subheading–in someone else’s document that they left for me to put to bed while they were on summer vacation. I will have to revisit whether the excessive-indenting habit contributed to the problem. Do you have a 12-step program you could suggest to help me break that habit?
Helpful thread…I’ve struggled with this.
Bullets are something I struggle with, as well. It seems to me that a first-level bullet character should be indented in the same way that a block quote is, especially if the list is meant to be part of the paragraph. But I get that this scheme makes the text itself twice-indented.
I’ve found, over the years, that taking the initial time to set up a full set of Styles to cover all the conditions you might typically need, is well worth the time to do so as it save you time and headaches in the end.
Because I do all my documents in Affinity Publisher, and they alphabetize Style names or numericalize (just made up that word) them in a single pop up end I take full advantage of the numbers to group related styles together for easy access.
For instance, I have predefined Style templates that might look like this. Parenthesis are notes in the list below endnote part of the styles.
0.1 Document Title
0.2 Document Heading
0.3 Heading Centered
1.0 Body
1.1 Body Left
1.2 Body Centered
1.3 Body Right
1.4 Body Indent (1st level)
1.5 Body Indent (2nd level)
1.6 Body Quote (indented left and right)
1.7 Body Bold
2.0 Jurat Title
3.0 Sub Heading
4.0 #d Sub-heading
4.1 1st # Level Indent
4.2 2n # Level Indent
4.3 3rd # Level Indent
etc.…
This keeps everything related to each class of Styles all together and there is not text in a document that does not have a style associated with it. There is also room to add addition numbers in each group.
If I need an indent level adjusted I select that text, tweak the style, and update it Instantly all text in the document with that style is updated.
I honestly don’t know if Word allows numbers in Style names or not, nor do I know if it would keep all numerical numberings in order like Publisher does.
The take away here is that setting up a template or starter document with all the styles you would typically ever need one time, then using it to start all new documents your completely covered, head to toe.
Hope this is helpful to some of you.
MaxClass
