Mtext Numbered/Bulleted lists

When you create notes in a design drawing, you often need to format them with bullets or sequential numbers/letters. Although you can insert bullets, numbers, and letters manually, it is time consuming and manual lists are difficult to maintain. Fortunately, beginning with AutoCAD 2006, creating and editing bulleted, numbered and lettered lists is easy. You can apply list formatting to selected text within the Mtext editor by selecting Lettered, Numbered, or Bulleted from the Text formatting toolbar. The user interface changed slightly in AutoCAD 2008 when the three original buttons (Bullets, Numbering and Lettering) were combined into a single flyout button with menu options. The same flyout menu is displayed when you right-click in the Mtext editor.

The first four options in the menu (Off,  Lettered,  Numbered, Bulleted) enable you to specify the type of formatting (if any) to apply to the selected paragraph. Since an Mtext object can include multiple paragraphs (each “Enter” creates a new paragraph), you can use multiple types of formatting within a single Mtext object. The Restart and Continue options enable you begin sequencing a new list or to continue the sequence from the previous list. They don’t affect Bulleted lists.

If you enable the option to Allow Auto-list, AutoCAD automatically applies numbered/lettered formatting when you begin a paragraph with a number or letter followed by one of the following special characters: period (.), comma (,), close parenthesis ()), close angle bracket (>), close square bracket (]), or close curly bracket (}). If you begin a paragraph with other special characters (i.e. @ # $ % ^ & *-), AutoCAD automatically applies bullet formatting using the special character as the bullet. After entering the special character, whether it is for numbered/lettered lists or bulleted lists, you must press the spacebar or Tab key. The paragraph won’t actually convert to list formatting until you press the Enter key to continue to the next line.

If you find Auto-list helpful but, at times, a little too presumptuous, you can limit its behavior by turning on the option to Use Tab Delimiter Only. When this option is turned on, as it is by default, AutoCAD only applies automatic list formatting if you press the Tab key following the special character. It does not apply list formatting when you press the spacebar.

The last option on the menu is to Allow Bullets and Lists. If you turn off this option, the rest of the menu options are disabled and any items with existing list formatting are converted to plain text.