Lists and sublists

LYX has several different environments for typesetting lists. The various list environments free you from hitting Tab a million times when writing an outline, or from renumbering a whole list when you want to add a point in the middle of the list, and lets you concentrate on the list content.^2.6 Different types of documents logically require different list environments:

• A slide presentation might use the Itemize environment's bulleted lists to describe different points.
• An outline would use the Enumerate environment's numbered lists (and lettered sublists).
• A document describing several software packages could use the Description environment, where each item in the list begins with a bold-faced word.
• The List environment -- not found in L^ATEX -- is a slightly different form of Description.

Let's write a list of reasons why LYX is better than other word processors. Somewhere in your document, type:

Lyx is better than other word processors because:

and hit Return. Now select Itemize from the Environment menu. LYX writes a ``bullet'' (actually, an asterisk, which will be converted to a round circle on output) on the line. Type in your reasons:

Typesetting is done for you.

Math is WYSIWYG

Lists are very easy to create!

List environments, unlike headings, do not end when you type Return. Instead, LYX assumes you're going on to the next item in the list. The above will therefore result in a three-item list. If you want more than one paragraph within one list item, one way is to use the Protected Break, which you get by typing C-Return. In order to get out of the list, you need to reselect the Standard environment (or just use the keybinding, M-p s).

You've got a beautiful itemized list. You might want to run L^ATEX to see how the list looks when printed out. But what if you wanted to number the reasons? Well, just select the whole list^2.7 and choose Enumerate from the Environment menu. Pow! As we mentioned, if you add or delete a list item, LYX will fix the numbering.

While the list is still selected, you can change to the other two list environments, Description and List, in order to see what they look like. For those two environments, each list item is made up of a term, which is the item's first word, followed by a definition, which is the rest of the paragraph (until you hit Return.) The term is either typeset in boldface (Description) or separated by a ``Tab''^2.8 (List) from the rest of the paragraph. If you want to have more than one word in the definition, then separate the words with Protected Blanks.

Exercise: Typeset the list in example_raw.lyx

You can nest lists within each other in all sorts of interesting ways. An obvious example would be writing outlines. Numbered and bulleted lists will have different numbering and bulleting schemes for sublists. See the User's Guide for details on the different sorts of lists, as well as examples which use a lot of nesting.