Creaing a Definition List

[Wooding]

My word processing experience is mostly formed from IBM's BookMaster,
one of the features of which is 'Definition Lists' (DLs). A DL is used
to document information about words or phrases. It is divided into 2
parts: the item being defined (the definition term - DT), and the data
that defines it (the definition data - DD). The DD can contain any other
type of list, including DLs. For example...

Word1 This is what word1 means. Word1 is used in this example to

represent any word or short phrase that needs defining.

Phrase two This entry is the description or definition of phrase two.
Notice how the list is formatted. Sometimes another list is
part of the definition as follows...
1. It could be a numbered list or
2. any other supported list.

I find this sort of list very useful, but have not managed to find an
equivalent in MS Word. I can simulate a DL with a bit of work, but its
very cumbersome and a properly supported facility would obviously be
preferable.

Is the facility hidden away somewhere, or is it just not supported?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Is there something special about this formatting aside from the hanging
indent? HTML uses specific formats for defined terms and definitions, but
Word doesn't have any specific styles. For dictionary work that I've done, I
created a Definition style with a hanging indent and then a character style
for the defined term. I put an em space between defined term and definition.
For definitions with more than one paragraph or with numbered lists, I
created additional styles for those types of paragraph.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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[Wooding]

Is there something special about this formatting aside from the hanging
indent? HTML uses specific formats for defined terms and definitions, but
Word doesn't have any specific styles. For dictionary work that I've done, I
created a Definition style with a hanging indent and then a character style
for the defined term. I put an em space between defined term and definition.
For definitions with more than one paragraph or with numbered lists, I
created additional styles for those types of paragraph.

No, its just a list with nothing special other than the hanging indent,
but, because its a supported list type its very easy to include it in
a nest of lists (the BookMaster implementation also allowed highlighting
of the DT) . It can be particularly useful, for example, when
documenting keywords that accept multiple, predefined, values. I've
often wanted to use them in documents that contain inventories where
each item must be described, some of which are collections of other items.
As mentioned previously, I can format such a list manually, its just
that I hoped there was a Word implementation.