How can I make an enumerate list start at something other than 1?

Question

Sometimes, I want to have enumerate lists in LaTeX start at other than the first value (1, a, i, etc.) How can I make an enumerate list start at an arbitrary value?

score 735 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 26 '10 at 20:47

735

You can change the counter named enumi, like this:

\begin{enumerate}
  \setcounter{enumi}{4}
  \item fifth element
\end{enumerate}

(If you have lists at deeper levels of nesting, the relevant counters are enumii, enumiii and enumiv.)

answered Jul 26 '10 at 20:47

ShreevatsaR

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How do you start at (a) from the very beginning and not (1)? – John Molokach Jul 08 '15 at 15:23
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@JohnMolokach See https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2291/how-do-i-change-the-enumerate-list-format-to-use-letters-instead-of-the-defaul (look at top two answers at least). – ShreevatsaR Jul 08 '15 at 15:38
Thanks. I think for what I need, I'll just use \begin{enumerate} \begin{enumerate} lettered items \end{enumerate} numbered items \end{enumerate} – John Molokach Jul 08 '15 at 19:22
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@JohnMolokach That will indent it an extra level, and make it look ugly. Better to do it right, e.g. simply \usepackage{enumerate} at the top and use \begin{enumerate}[(a)] etc. Anyway, it's up to you. This question was about starting at something other than the first index, e.g. starting at (e) instead of (a), but I can see how the title is ambiguous. – ShreevatsaR Jul 08 '15 at 19:25
If you want the first item to start at 0, you need to be sure to set the counter to -1. – Jonathan Geisler Sep 30 '19 at 03:40
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Note that the level gets deeper when you are in an enumerate environment inside another enumerate environment. itemize environments do not count. So if you are inside an itemize environment you still use enumi and not enumii. – yannis Feb 11 '20 at 20:05
Great. Worked fine for me. – stephanmg Apr 28 '20 at 09:21
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Be advised, that \setcounter{enumi}{N} will set the next item's value to N+1. So if you happen to end another enumeration with N being the last item and to start another enumeration with N+1, you want to set the counter to N-1 instead. – stephanmg Apr 28 '20 at 09:32
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\setcounter{enumi}{-1} for starting at 0 – Dženan May 04 '20 at 13:21
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@stephanmg That means that if you end an enumeration with N being the last item, you want to set the counter back to N again (not N-1) in the next enumeration if you want to start with N+1. – JoeyBF Apr 25 '23 at 23:42

score 96 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 26 '10 at 21:07

96

The enumitem package provides a simple solution to very many common problems that are related to minor tweaks of enumerate/itemize/description. In this case, you can use the start parameter. Also have a look at the resume parameter.

answered Jul 26 '10 at 21:07

Jukka Suomela

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I would just like to make explicit that the "resume" parameter causes the counter to continue from the previous "enumerate" environment. – Austin Mohr Jan 09 '14 at 05:37
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To be more explicit "resume"parameter causes the counter to continue from the previous "enumerate" environment in the current block. For example \begin{enumerate} \item 1 \end{enumerate} \begin{defn} \begin{enumerate} \item 1 \item 2 \end{enumerate} \end{defn} \begin{enumerate} \item This will be 2 \end{enumerate} – Dr. Dinesh J. Karia Nov 16 '16 at 07:16
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For people looking for a MWE using resume you can find one here – codeaviator Oct 03 '17 at 12:14
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FYI: enumitem with \begin{enumerate}[resume] is nice but not compatible with the paralist package's compactenum environment. – orbeckst Sep 06 '19 at 17:27

score 55 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 03 '11 at 20:43

If you only want to alter the starting value, the easiest way is:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{enumerate}\addtocounter{enumi}{41}
  \item This item is numbered `42.'
    \begin{enumerate}\addtocounter{enumii}{5}% This cannot be more than 25
      \item This one is ``numbered'' `(f)'
    \end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

While you can have six layers of nested list environments (itemize, description, enumerate), you can have no more than 4 of one type. The counters enumi through enumiv control the index of each item's label. You can increment (as shown) or decrement (add a negative value) all 4 levels.

Note, though, that this won't be entirely arbitrary. Levels enumerated alphabetically cannot have items after an item labeled 'z.' (You could, however, add a negative amount to the appropriate counter to get it back to the `a' label.)

(Now that I see the other answer, I wonder why I always opt for the relative \addtocounter rather than the absolute \settocounter?)

\addtocounter is safer in that it ensures monotonicity when used mid-list. — equaeghe, Mar 19 '14 at 10:22

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 06 '20 at 07:48

7

\addtocounter works with 0 too:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{enumerate}\addtocounter{enumi}{-1}
  \item  % starts with `0.`
  \item  % starts with `1.`
  ..
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

answered Apr 06 '20 at 07:48

tormec

83

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What if we want to change the counter if an inner enumerate? – snoram Jan 27 '22 at 18:54

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 31 '23 at 09:11

Just to complete the answer of Jukka with a copy/pastable example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
\item Hello
\item I am
\end{enumerate}
\begin{enumerate}[resume]
\item a list
\item that continues
\end{enumerate}
\begin{enumerate}[start=42]
\item and go
\item beyond your hopes
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}

Note however that this solution is not compatible with beamer, while \setcounter{enumi}{3} does work.

How can I make an enumerate list start at something other than 1?

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