Formatting lists

Several registers define the spacing associated with lists. It is likely that their default values won't suit your particular layout.

\abovelistskipamount, \belowlistskipamount

The vertical glue inserted before and after every list, respectively.

\interitemskipamount

The vertical glue inserted before each item except the first. \listcompact resets this to zero, as mentioned above.

\listleftindent, \listrightindent

\listrightindent is the amount of space by which the list is indented on the right; i.e., it is added to \rightskip. \listleftindent is the amount of space, relative to \parindent, by which the list is indented on the left. Why treat the two parameters differently? Because (a) it is more useful to make the list indentation depend on the paragraph indentation; (b) footnotes aren't formatted right if \parindent is reset to zero.

The three vertical glues are inserted by macros, and preceded by penalties: \abovelistskip does \vpenalty\abovelistpenalty and then \vskip\abovelistskip. \belowlistskip and \interitemskip are analogous.

In addition, the macro \listmarkerspace is called to separate the item label from the item text. This is set to \enspace by default.

If you want to change the labels on the items, you can redefine these macros: \numberedmarker or \unorderedmarker. The following registers might be useful if you do:

\numberedlistdepth, \unorderedlistdepth

These keep track of the depth of nesting of the two kinds of lists.

\itemnumber, \itemletter

These keep track of the number of items that have been seen in the current numbered list. They are both integer registers. The difference is that \itemnumber starts at one, and \itemletter starts at 97, i.e., lowercase `a'.

You can also redefine the control sequences that are used internally, if you want to do something radically different: \beginlist is invoked to begin both kinds of lists; \printitem is invoked to print the label (and space following the label) for each item; and \endlist is invoked to end both kinds of lists.