Indent, fer pete's sake

[Calybos]

All I want to do is indent a paragraph within a list!

1. First item.
Indented paragraph without numbering.
2. Second item.

Why is that so hard? Every time I click the Indent button, I get either a "Hi! You must want to create a group" message, or an auto-numbered 2 that can't be removed without deleting the line and starting over. The style "blockquote" is never available on the Styles window, even though I can clearly see it on the stylesheet. I realize Flare wants to discourage manual formatting, but come on... I can't be the first tech writer to ever want to add an indented, non-numbered item between numbered items in a list.

[Nita Beck]

Welcome to the forums!

If you want to add a paragraph within a list item, right-click the list item and, from the shortcut menu, select Make Paragraph Items, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + ; (semicolon).

Later, when you want to return to the next list item, you can press Shift+Tab.

[Calybos]

Hmmm. Thanks for trying to help, but none of that is working for me. I'm not trying to add a list item and then Make Paragraph Item (whatever that is, and the option isn't showing up anyway); I'm just trying to indent a paragraph.

The list has stopped. It's dead and buried. I've added a new line underneath the list item, and I'm trying to indent it. How can I make that happen?

1. List item
Following paragraph, which really should be indented but isn't.

It seems like Blockquote would be a good alternative if the Indent button won't work, but Blockquote isn't showing up on the list of styles (even though it's on the stylesheet). This is quite baffling to me; it's not working at all like MS Word, which it really should be trying to reproduce as faithfully as possible.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Not quite sure what you're trying to achieve. Judging by your original post what Nita described is exactly what you want to do. When you insert a list, take a look at the structure bars on the left of the XML editor and follow Nita's instructions, it should make things a bit clearer for you.

If you wanted to have a completely unconnected paragraph between two list items, you would need to have two separate lists. The numbering would not follow on (unless you manually force it to) because they're separate lists so by default would start at 1.

If, on the other hand, you want to be able to create an indented paragraph anywhere in your body text, I suggest you create a new <p> tag where the left margin is set to the required indent. This is far preferable to using inline styling.

But really, Nita's suggestion is what you need, honest!

And no, it most definitely doesn't mimic Word. Word doesn't handle lists properly at all, and there's always confusion for Word users when they move to Flare (I speak from experience here) but it does fall into place once you can grasp the concepts.

[ChoccieMuffin]

This is the code in the text editor for a simple list. Note that the first list item contains two paragraphs (including the indented one).

Code: Select all

        <ol>
            <li>
                <p>To create a list, on the Home tab click the List button.</p>
                <p>A list appears.</p>
            </li>
            <li>When you have finished typing your list, press Enter twice.</li>
        </ol>

And this is what it looks like. Note the structure bars.

List.png

[Calybos]

I must be missing something very basic, then; I have been unable to find a "Make Paragraph Item" option on any right-click menu, anywhere in or out of the list.

Here's the right-click menu:


There is no Make Paragraph Item option. And I still can't find out why Blockquote is unavailable on the Styles window, even though it's clearly in the stylesheet. Surely ALL the styles are available all the time, right?

[ChoccieMuffin]

In the first list item (in my example above) right-click the <li> structure bar. THAT'S where you get Make Paragraph. Alternatively, with your cursor in the first list item, press Ctrl + ; and you get the same thing.

[Calybos]

Wait, so I need to click those weird little bars off to the left, rather than the text itself?

OK, that got me a Make Paragraph Item option; but it's still numbered, and I can't get rid of the numbering without deleting the text.



And where the heck is Blockquote?

[ChoccieMuffin]

1. Right-click the structure item for point 1 and click Make Paragraph Item, or with the cursor in point 1 press Ctrl + ;.
2. At the end of the line, press Enter. You will now have a single list item that contains two paragraphs, like my example above, followed by an empty point 2, because you haven't typed anything in it yet.

And I haven't got a clue about blockquotes - don't use 'em, don't know what they are, get by perfectly well without 'em. But couldn't live without Ctrl + ;...

[ChoccieMuffin]

Ah, just seen some stuff that is behind your screenshot, and it looks like you might also find nested lists worthwhile.

list2.png

[LTinker68]

And where the heck is Blockquote?

I only skimmed this topic, so someone might have answered this, but when you click the Indent button and the "Create Group" screen appears, there should be a blockquote listed in there that you click on to insert a blockquote (you'll also see DIV as an option). If you don't see blockquote listed, then double-check that you didn't inadvertently set the blockquote style to be "disabled", which hides it from showing up in the Styles pane and Stylesheet Editor.