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Practice

Creating Lists

A List in a document is useful for structuring information.

With python-docx, you can easily add ordered lists and unordered lists to a Word document.

In this lesson, we will learn how to create lists and style them in various ways.


Creating an Unordered List (Bullet List)​

An unordered list displays items with bullet symbols (such as -, *, etc.) in front of each item.

This type of list is used when the items are independent of each other or when the order is not important.

In python-docx, an unordered list can be created using the add_paragraph() method with the ListBullet style.


Code Example​

Creating an Unordered List
from docx import Document

# Create a new Word document
doc = Document()

# Add unordered list items
doc.add_paragraph('First item', style='ListBullet')
doc.add_paragraph('Second item', style='ListBullet')
doc.add_paragraph('Third item', style='ListBullet')

# Save the document
doc.save('output_file.docx')

  • add_paragraph('text', style='ListBullet') adds a paragraph with bullet style applied.

  • In the code above, 'First item', 'Second item', and 'Third item' are displayed as an unordered list with bullet points.

When you run this code, an unordered list with bullet symbols in front of each item will be created.


Creating an Ordered List (Numbered List)​

An ordered list displays items with numbers in front of each item.

In python-docx, an ordered list can be created using the ListNumber style.


Code Example​

Creating an Ordered List
# Add ordered list items
doc.add_paragraph('First item', style='ListNumber')
doc.add_paragraph('Second item', style='ListNumber')
doc.add_paragraph('Third item', style='ListNumber')

# Save the document
doc.save('output_file.docx')

  • add_paragraph('text', style='ListNumber') adds a paragraph with number list style applied.

  • In the code above, 'First item', 'Second item', and 'Third item' are displayed with numbers.

When you run this code, an ordered list with numbers in front of each item will be created.


Creating a Multi-level List​

With python-docx, you can also create multi-level lists, which include sub-items.

This is done by using the same style while indenting paragraphs to represent hierarchy.

Creating a Multi-level List
# Add multi-level list items
doc.add_paragraph('Main item 1', style='ListNumber')
doc.add_paragraph('   Sub-item 1.1', style='ListNumber')
doc.add_paragraph('   Sub-item 1.2', style='ListNumber')
doc.add_paragraph('Main item 2', style='ListNumber')
doc.add_paragraph('   Sub-item 2.1', style='ListNumber')

# Save the document
doc.save('output_file.docx')

  • Indents are represented by adding spaces in front of paragraphs.

  • Main item 1 and Main item 2 include indented sub-items like Sub-item 1.1 and Sub-item 1.2.

When you run this code, a multi-level numbered list will be created.

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