Lists

The list feature lets you create ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists. This allows for better structuring and presenting specific content such as enumerating elements, creating tables of content or to-do lists.

Lists are useful when you want to emphasize selected information, highlight a series of steps, enumerate items of a collection. They draw the reader’s attention and, just like block quotes or indentation, give the text a structure and breathing room. They help visually separate passages for a better reading experience and make skimming for information easier.

You may find additional interesting details and examples in the Lists in CKEditor 5 blog post after reading this guide.

# Ordered and unordered lists

An unordered (bulleted) list can represent items where the order is not important, for example, a list of ingredients required for preparing a dish or a drink.

An ordered (numbered) list can be used if the order of the items matters, for example, when creating an instruction. Here, the sequence of steps that must be done is important.

# Demo

Use the editor below to see the CKEditor 5 list feature in action. Toolbar buttons can be used to insert both ordered and unordered lists .

A Markdown code provided by the autoformatting feature can also be utilized:

• Start a line with * or - followed by a space for a bulleted list.
• Start a line with 1. or 1) followed by a space for a numbered list.

# List properties

Beside the basic functionality of creating the ordered and unordered lists, CKEditor 5 offers additional formatting tools that allow controlling the lists. Features such as more styles for list markers, setting the start index or reversing the list order can be enabled separately or all together. Check out the individual demos below or see all list properties working together in the full-featured editor example.

# List styles

The list style feature introduces some more styles for the list item markers. When enabled, it adds 3 styles for unordered lists and 6 styles for ordered lists to choose from. The user will be able to set or change the list style via the dropdown that opens when you click the arrow next to the appropriate list button in the toolbar.

# Demo

In the editor below use the ordered or unordered list dropdown to choose the desired marker type for each list.

# List start index

The list start index feature allows the user to choose the starting point of an ordered list. By default, this would be 1 (or A, or I — see the list styles section), but in certain situations it may be desired to start a list with some other digit or letter.

When this feature is enabled, an additional dropdown option is available in the ordered list toolbar button. Thanks to it, the user may set or change the starting marker.

# Demo

In the editor below, notice how the ordering is continued in the second list. You can go to the first item of the last list and use the ordered list dropdown input field to set the start index to achieve continuous numbering of spaceships.

# Reversed list

The reversed list feature lets the user reverse the numbering order of a list, changing it from ascending to descending. This is especially useful in countdowns and things-to-do lists that need to reproduce steps in a reversed order (for example, in a disassembling instruction in an owners manual).

When this feature is enabled, an additional dropdown switch is available in the ordered list toolbar button. Thanks to it, the user may easily reverse the order of a list with a single click.

# Demo

Click the second list and use the ordered list dropdown switch to choose whether it should be reversed.

# List indentation

Refer to the Indenting lists section of the Block indentation feature guide.

# Related features

These features also provide similar functionality:

• To-do lists – Create a list of interactive checkboxes with labels.
• Block indentation – Set indentation for text blocks such as paragraphs or headings and lists.
• Autoformatting – Format the text on the go with Markdown code.

# Installation

To add this feature to your editor, install the @ckeditor/ckeditor5-list package:

npm install --save @ckeditor/ckeditor5-list

Then add the List plugin to your plugin list and the toolbar configuration:

import List from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-list/src/list';

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        plugins: [ List, ... ],
        toolbar: [ 'bulletedList', 'numberedList', ... ]
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

# List properties

To enable the list properties feature, install the @ckeditor/ckeditor5-list package:

npm install --save @ckeditor/ckeditor5-list

Then add the ListProperties plugin to your plugin list and configure the toolbar. To enable selected sub-features of the list properties, you need to add their configuration to your editor (set true for each feature you want to enable):

import ListProperties from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-list/src/listproperties';

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        plugins: [ ListProperties, ... ],
        toolbar: [ 'bulletedList', 'numberedList', ... ],
        list: {
            properties: {
                styles: true,
                startIndex: true,
                reversed: true
            }
        }
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

# Common API

The List plugin registers:

• The 'numberedList' command.
• The 'bulletedList' command.
• The 'indentList' command.
• The 'outdentList' command.
• The 'numberedList' UI button.
• The 'bulletedList' UI button.

The ListProperties plugin registers:

• The listStyle command that accepts the type of the list style to set. If not set, is uses the default marker (usually decimal).

  editor.execute( 'listStyle', { type: 'lower-roman' } );
  

  The available types are:

  • For bulleted lists: 'disc', 'circle' and 'square'.
  • For numbered lists: 'decimal', 'decimal-leading-zero', 'lower-roman', 'upper-roman', 'lower-latin' and 'upper-latin'.

• The listStart command which is a Number and defaults to 1 (meaning a list starts with 1). If enabled, it accepts a numerical value for the start attribute.

  editor.execute( 'listStart', { startIndex: 3 } );
  

• The listReversed command which is a Boolean and defaults to false (meaning the list order is ascending).

  editor.execute( 'listReversed', { reversed: 'true' } );
  

• The numberedList UI split button that overrides the UI button registered by the List plugin.

• The bulletedList UI split button that overrides the UI button registered by the List plugin.

# Contribute

The source code of the feature is available on GitHub in https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor5/tree/master/packages/ckeditor5-list.