Lists: Enumerate, itemize, description and how to change them

Lists: Enumerate, itemize, description and how to change them

By tom

Latex distinguishes between three different enumeration/itemization environments. Each of them provide four levels, which means you can have nested lists of up to four levels.



Enumerate:



1

\begin{enumerate}

2

\item ...

3

\end{enumerate}

The enumerate-environment is used to create numbered lists.

If you like to change the appearance of the enumerator, the simplest way to change is to use the enumerate-package, giving you the possibility to optionally choose an enumerator.



1

\usepackage{enumerate}

2

...

3

\begin{enumerate}[I]%for capital roman numbers.

4

\item

5

\end{enumerate}





1

\begin{enumerate}[(a)]%for small alpha-characters within brackets.

2

\item

3

\end{enumerate}

Itemize:



1

\begin{itemize}

2

\item ...

3

\end{itemize}

Itemization is probably the mostly used list in Latex. It also provides four levels. The bullets can be changed for each level using the following command:



1

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{$\bullet$}

2

\renewcommand{\labelitemii}{$\cdot$}

3

\renewcommand{\labelitemiii}{$\diamond$}

4

\renewcommand{\labelitemiv}{$\ast$}

Amongst the more commonly used ones are $\bullet$ (), $\cdot$ (), $\diamond$ (), $-$ (), $\ast$ () and $\circ$ ().



Description:



1

\begin{description}

2

\item[] ...

3

\end{description}

The description list might be the least known. It comes in very handy if you need to explain notations or terms. Its neither numbered nor bulleted.



Example:



1

\begin{description}

2

\item[Biology] Study of life.

3

\item[Physics] Science of matter and its motion.

4

\item[Psychology] Scientific study of mental processes and behaviour.

5

\end{description}

And in a PDF it would look like this:





Example of a description list.

Note:



The space between different items can be controlled with the \itemsep command (can only be added just after “begin”):



Lists: Enumerate, itemize, description and how to change them « LaTeX Matters

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