Adobe Indesign: Finding the last bullet in a bullet list

Question

My current style sheet is:

• [Body] After paragraph : 4mm
• [Body, Start of List] After paragraph : 1mm
• [Bullets] After paragraph : 1mm
• [Bullets, Last] After paragraph : 4mm

Part 1

Is there a way to Find the last bullet in a bullet list and then apply my [Bullets, Last] style. (in Find and replace - styles)

Part 2

Is there a way to Find the Paragraph before the Bullet list ? So i can add in [Body, Start of List] to this paragraph.

Would this be a grep thing?

Answer 1

Part 1

There is no need to set a different style on the last bullet point.

Just set up "bullets" style with Space after set to 4mm and Space between set to 1mm, and apply this one style to all bullets.

Part 2:

I know of no good way to find the para before a bullet list, but you can use a trick to apply 2 styles at once.

First the set up:

• You already have a "bullets" style.
• Then set up a "introducing bullets" style.
• Set the Next style of "introducing bullets" to your "bullets" style.

Then to apply:

• select the text that needs to be styled: from the introducing para, down to the last bullet point
• right click "introducing bullets" style in the paragraph styles panel, and choose Apply "introducing bullets" then Next Style

See the demo below.

Bonus Part 3!

If you switch to using space before, you will only need to 2 styles: the body style with 4mm above, and the list style with 1mm above. You can ignore space between.

Answer 2

• Use the Indents and Spacing section of the Paragraph Style dialog to specify Space Before and Space After.
• Use the option Space Between Paragraphs Using Same Style to specify the space between the bulleted list items. (note: this is a new-ish feature and may not be available in older versions in InDesign)
• For example, if Space Before is 1mm, Space After is 2mm, and Space Between is 3mm, the bulleted list will have 1mm pt before the 1st item, 2mm after the last item and in between the bulleted list items, space will be 3mm.