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Is there an advantage to using the enumerate package over the enumitem package or vice versa? I use enumitem and my co-worker uses enumerate, and we're trying to decide which should be used when we collaborate.

user203072
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2 Answers2

81

use enumitem (I wrote enumerate)

David Carlisle
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    @Tvde1 well enumitem has a full enumerate emulation so it does everything enumerate does plus a lot more and has the benefit of nearly 30 years of tex development, the basic code of enumerate hasn't changed since 1991. – David Carlisle Dec 11 '19 at 17:07
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    This is most likely the most useful not-the-answer-to-the-question post I've seen so far. – jthulhu Dec 28 '22 at 22:13
33

The enumitem package is far more flexible when compared with enumerate. The latter provides an optional argument where you can specify the item number format using a generic representation while the former provides a key-value interface where one can specify number format representation in addition to a host of other list-related settings (or perform these settings globally). Here are two examples:

  • Parenthesized lowercase roman numerals:

      % enumerate interface
  \begin{enumerate}[(i)]
    % Your list here
  \end{enumerate}

    % enumitem interface
  \begin{enumerate}[label = (\roman*)]
    % Your list here
  \end{enumerate}

  • Bracketed uppercase alphabetic characters

      % enumerate interface
  \begin{enumerate}[{[A]}]
    % Your list here
  \end{enumerate}

    % enumitem interface
  \begin{enumerate}[label = {[\Alph*]}]
    % Your list here
  \end{enumerate}

The interface provided by enumitem is more intuitive and verbose (you specify label explicitly, including the counter representation format \Alph rather than A). Additionally, enumitem provides a host of other options, including

  • separate label and ref keys for alternative references to labels,
  • spacing adjustments (vertical and horizontal),
  • in-line list enumeration,
  • list continuation,
  • new list style generation,
  • ...

In short, enumitem provides a modern, user-friendly, key-value interface to many list manipulations, while enumerate is only geared towards short-hand list representation.

Werner
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    You forgot to mention that the shortlabels option \usepackage[shortlabels]{enumitem} allows you to use the same syntax as the enumerate package, which makes its use much less verbose and much more pleasant. – AndréC Dec 10 '19 at 19:52