For those who struggle for brevity in writing, using bullet points and numbered lists can help ensure clarity. And they are particularly good when giving examples or outlining a process.
Thankfully, Microsoft Word makes it easy to add these to your work.
Bullet points are generally used when listing things non-sequentially (i.e. when the order doesn’t matter). As a general rule, though, bullet points aren’t used for lists of less than four items, since these lists can be included in the main text of your document.
To insert a bullet pointed list when using Microsoft Word 2010 or later:
Selecting a bullet point style.
If you really want to mix things up, you can even use custom images as bullet points!
Numbered lists are used when you want to list items sequentially or in order of importance. The way to do this is very similar to inserting bullet points:
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Numbering/lettering options.
For more customisation, you can also play with the ‘Define New Number Format’ options.
If you’re feeling extra adventurous, you can even use a ‘multilevel’ list. This is especially useful if you want to include sub-lists within your main list.
To create a multilevel list:
The multilevel list menu.
And for more control, click ‘Define New Multilevel List’ in the ‘Multilevel list’ menu. Here, you can change the settings for the different levels of a multilevel list.
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