This section hardly needs any explanation. Sometimes it is not enough with just the ordinary arabic enumeration counter. With the enumeratepackage, it is possible to change the arabic numbers into letters or roman numbers (lower or upper case), and the dot into other symbols, like a dash or parenthesis, or even some other text. The enumerate package documentationcontains some other examples.
Another thing you sometimes want to do is to change the number of the counter. In my example I have inserted a comment regarding all subsequent items, which means I do not want that comment indented. My solution to this is to end the enumeration, write the comments and then start a new enumeration. Before the first enumeration ended I saved the counter, and before the first \itemin the second enumeration I restored it. (The variable enumii_savedhas just a dummy name, it could be called something else.) If I had wanted to change the counter of the top level enumeration, I had obviously changed enumiinstead. As you can see, I can set the number directly as well. Arabic numbers are always used for LaTeX counters, even if they are represented otherwise in the document. The 7is the number I want LaTeX to think was the last one written. For small documents, this will probably be the easiest solution to the continuation problem as well, but for large documents there is always the risk that you forget that you added a new item, and you end up with two items number 19, for example.
\documentclass{article} \usepackage{enumerate} \begin{document} \begin{enumerate} \item This is an example of \ldots \item \ldots the usual enumeration. \begin{enumerate}[a)] \item And this is a \ldots \item \ldots couple of \ldots \end{enumerate} \item \begin{enumerate}[-- i --] \item \ldots examples of \ldots \item \ldots custom-tailored \ldots \item \ldots enumerations. \newcounter{enumii_saved} \setcounter{enumii_saved}{\value{enumii}} \end{enumerate} Some general comments \begin{enumerate}[-- i --] \setcounter{enumii}{\value{enumii_saved}} \item My next point. \setcounter{enumii}{7} \item My eighth point. \end{enumerate} \end{enumerate} \end{document}