How to Align the Punctuation in a FrameMaker 9 Numbered List

© 2011 Ugur Akinci

Numbered FrameMaker lists look alright until you reach the TENTH step. Then things usually get ugly due to the way the default PERIOD after the step number shifts right.

Here is one such UGLY LIST:

Here is a method to construct numbered lists that look much better than the one above. We’ll call it the HANDSOME LIST METHOD ) which consists of creating TWO tab stops.

(1) Launch your Paragraph Designer (Ctrl + M).

(2) Select the NUMBERED 1 paragraph tag.

(3) Click and display the BASIC tab.

(4) Select New Tab Stop and click Edit to display the EDIT TAB STOP dialog box:

(5) Enter an appropriate value for New Position, which is the distance from the LEFT edge of the TEXT FRAME, like 1″. Select DECIMAL for Alignment.

(6) Click Continue to return to the BASIC tab.

Now you need to create a SECOND tab stop, this one with LEFT alignment.

(7) Select New Tab Stop and re-click Edit to display the EDIT TAB STOP dialog box.

(8) Enter an appropriate value for New Position, which should be LARGER than the DECIMAL tab stop.  For example, in this example, it has to be larger than 1. For example: 1.3″.

(9) Click Continue to return to the BASIC tab.

(10) Click the APPLY button to make sure the tans will register.

(11) Now select the NUMBERING tab. Select the AUTONUMBER FORMAT check-box.

(12) Enter this formula into the Autonumber Format field:

\t <n=1>.\t

(13) Click Apply to register the formula.

(14) Select the NUMBERED paragraph tag.

(15) Repeat the steps 3-11.

(16) Enter this formula into the Autonumber Format field:

\t <n+>.\t

(17) Click Update All to register the formula with all the steps (other than the first step).

And enjoy your HANDSOME LIST: