InDesign: creating a numbered list with custom glyphs

Question

I'm doing a signage design in Indesign and want to use the CIRCLED DIGIT ONE, CIRCLED DIGIT TWO, etc number glyphs for a numbered list. I'm using Lato Medium.

Setting a custom glyph for a bulleted list is easy, but is it possible to create a style that uses other glyphs in the font set and enumerates them?

Note that I don't want to use another font for the numbering, rather I want to use characters in the Lato Medium font that are part of the extended unicode set of characters.

Answer 1

I think custom glyphs is the only way. Use Left Indent and a negative First Line Left Indent to insert these glyphs by hand followed by a TAB.

A numbered list in ID only works with Unicodes 0031, 0032, 0033, etc which normally get assigned to the plain 1, 2, 3 characters, including in your Lato Medium font. While the NEGATIVE CIRCLE DIGITS glyphs found in Lato Medium have these Unicodes for 1, 2, 3: 2776, 2777, 2778. To InDesign these are meaningless symbols, not the digits you type via your keyboard keys 1, 2, 3.

On the other hand this font only has 20 NEGATIVE CIRCLE DIGITS, so anything above 20 could not have been displayed anyway via automatic numbering.

Answer 2

Yes, you can do this. Create a Paragraph Style for your numbered list. Edit that Paragraph Style and go to the Bullets and Numbering tab.

Under Numbering Style, look for Character Style and select New Character Style...

In the New Character Style dialog box, select the Basic Character Formats tab and apply the Dingbat Negative font family.

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Given your edits, the following is one option. It is not perfect and will work best if your work is done and ready for publishing.

1. Create your list as usual, but when you edit the Paragraph Style and choose Bullets and Numbering, take out the period (so instead of ^#.^t I would put ^#^t).
2. Select the entire list, right click and choose Convert Numbering to Text.
3. Cmd-F/Ctrl-F and choose the Glyph tab. Set font to Lato Medium for both the Find Glyph and the Change Glyph.
4. For Find Glyph ID, choose Unicode and enter 0031. For Change Glyph ID, choose Unicode and enter 2776. Set your Search parameter to Selection (assuming you still have the entire list selected).
5. Click Find Next. If the correct numbered list glyph is selected (in this case, 1), click Change.
6. Increment each ID by 1 (Find Glyph ID becomes 0032 and Change Glyph ID becomes 2777).

Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you get to the end of your list.