Listem items show with dashes only

Question

perhaps a noob question, i'm new to latex :

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,oneside]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[frenchb]{babel}
\begin{document}
 \begin{itemize}
   \item  First Level
   \begin{itemize}
     \item  Second Level
     \begin{itemize}
       \item  Third Level
       \begin{itemize}
         \item  Fourth Level
       \end{itemize}
     \end{itemize}
   \end{itemize}
 \end{itemize}\end{document}

Only gives me dashed items, even nested ones

I would expect to redifined them - I've tried things like \renewcommand{\labelitemii}{$\star$} The default behavior mentionned here would also suit me. Project is hosted on sharelatex. Any idea anyone ? Thank you !

Welcome to TeX.SX! Perhaps you should say what you want instead of dashes. Bullets, perhaps? — , May 25 '18 at 06:56

moewe · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-25T07:48:39.303

The French babel module redefines certain bits of the document to conform with French typographical standards and customs. It only does this if it is the document main language (if it is loaded last), but in that case it applies these changes to all parts of the document, even parts written in a different language (this surprised me at first).

Amongst others, the default itemize labels are changed. You can turn this off and return to the standard behaviour with

\frenchsetup{StandardItemLabels=true}

Alternatively, you can modify the labels of only certain levels with

\frenchsetup{ItemLabeli=\textbullet, ItemLabelii={\normalfont\bfseries \textendash}}

Accepted keys are ItemLabeli up to ItemLabeliv.

For even finer control over list environments you can also check out enumitem.

If you had not used French, \renewcommand{\labelitemii}{$\star$} would indeed have worked. But since language redefinitions are loaded close to the end of the preamble this redefinition never survived long enough to take effect. (You can see that \AtBeginDocument{\renewcommand{\labelitemii}{$\star$}} seems to work, but the methods of \frenchsetup should be preferred.)

BTW: My babel tells me to use \usepackage[french]{babel} and not \usepackage[frenchb]{babel}

MWE

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,oneside]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[french]{babel}

\frenchsetup{StandardItemLabels=true}

\begin{document}
 \begin{itemize}
   \item  First Level
   \begin{itemize}
     \item  Second Level
     \begin{itemize}
       \item  Third Level
       \begin{itemize}
         \item  Fourth Level
       \end{itemize}
     \end{itemize}
   \end{itemize}
 \end{itemize}
\end{document}

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered May 25 '18 at 07:13

You can customize the item shapes like this,

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,oneside]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
 \begin{itemize}
   \item[$\star$]  First Level
   \begin{itemize}
     \item[>]  Second Level
     \begin{itemize}
       \item[$\ast$]  Third Level
       \begin{itemize}
         \item  Fourth Level
       \end{itemize}
     \end{itemize}
   \end{itemize}
 \end{itemize}\end{document}

You just pass an argument to \itemin bracket, there are lots of options.

Hope that helps.

Romain

Listem items show with dashes only

2 Answers2