Ordered list (HTML) lower-alpha with right parentheses?

The default lower-alpha list type for ordered list uses a dot '.'. Is there a way to use a right parenthesis instead like a)... b) ..etc?

Solution 1:

Here's a neat solution. (Honestly I surprised myself with this.) CSS has something called counters, where you can set, for example, automatic chapter numbers on each heading. A bit of modification gives you the below; You'll need to sort out padding etc yourself.

ol {
  counter-reset: list;
}
ol > li {
  list-style: none;
}
ol > li:before {
  content: counter(list, lower-alpha) ") ";
  counter-increment: list;
}

<span>custom list style type (v1):</span>
<ol>
  <li>Number 1</li>
  <li>Number 2</li>
  <li>Number 3</li>
  <li>Number 4</li>
  <li>Number 5</li>
  <li>Number 6</li>
</ol>

Works in all modern browsers and IE9+ (and possibly IE8 but may be buggy).

Update: I added child selector to prevent nested lists picking up the parent style. trejder also beings up a good point in the comments that the list item alignment is also messed up. An article on 456bereastreet has a good solution which involves absolutely positioning the counter.

ol {
    counter-reset: list;
}
ol > li {
    list-style: none;
    position: relative;
}
ol > li:before {
    counter-increment: list;
    content: counter(list, lower-alpha) ") ";
    position: absolute;
    left: -1.4em;
}

<span>custom list style type (v2):</span>
<ol>
  <li>Number 1</li>
  <li>Number 2</li>
  <li>Number 3</li>
  <li>Number 4</li>
  <li>Number 5</li>
  <li>Number 6</li>
</ol>

Here is a jsFiddle showing the result, including nested lists.

Solution 2:

building off of DisgruntledGoat's answer, I expanded it to support sub lists & styles as I needed. Sharing it here in case it helps someone.

https://jsfiddle.net/0a8992b9/ outputs:

(i)first roman
    (a)first alpha
    (b)second alpha
    (c)third alpha
    (d)fourth alpha
(ii)second roman
(iii)third roman
    (a)first alpha
    (b)second alpha

Solution 3:

More than 10 years after the original question the standard (and, to some extent, implementations) seem to have caught up.

CSS now provides ::marker pseudoclass which can be used to achieve custom list markers: MDN.

Using ::marker automatically indents li's content without any hacks. According to MDN, as of Feb 2021 it's supported in Firefox, Chrome and Edge, and partially (not for this use case) in Safari.

.container {
  width: 400px;
}

ol.custom-marker {
  counter-reset: list;
}

ol.custom-marker > li {
  list-style: none;
  counter-increment: list;
}

ol.custom-marker.parens-after.decimal > li::marker {
  content: counter(list) ")\a0";
}

ol.custom-marker.parens-around.lower-roman > li::marker {
  content: "(" counter(list, lower-roman) ")\a0";
}

<div class='container'>
  <ol class='custom-marker parens-after decimal'>
    <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Eu sem integer vitae justo eget magna fermentum. Quis varius quam quisque id diam.</li>
    <li>Another list here
      <ol class='custom-marker parens-around lower-roman'>
        <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Eu sem integer vitae justo eget magna fermentum. Quis varius quam quisque id diam.</li>
        <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Eu sem integer vitae justo eget magna fermentum. Quis varius quam quisque id diam.</li>
      </ol>
    </li>
    <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Eu sem integer vitae justo eget magna fermentum. Quis varius quam quisque id diam.</li>
  </ol>
</div>

\a0 in content is  , since ::marker doesn't support margins or padding.

Ordered list (HTML) lower-alpha with right parentheses?

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

Solution 3:

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