Bullet Points Formatting after Headline [or any styled text]

AmberV · September 28, 2025, 12:38pm

I’m not sure, but I think maybe some of these symptoms are the result of gradually fixing the errors rather than fixing it all at once?

Here is what I have been doing anyway:

Select the styled line along with the following list lines.
Next choose one of the following methods:
- If you have detailed formatting within the area that would need to be restored (links, italics, etc.):
  1. Hit ⌥⌘0 to clear styles.
  2. Use Format ▸ Lists ▸ None
- Otherwise, if it is just list and styles to restore:
  1. Use ⌘X to Cut, and then ⇧⌥⌘V to Paste and Match Style.
    
    Generally I would use this method if you can, as it will be the safest and most thorough way to delete all traces of formatting—it pastes as raw plain text. For the most thorough approach, make your selection a bit around the affected area, a few words into the paragraphs around it, in other words.
Delete plain-text tab+bullet+tab text from the damaged list line(s).
On the first line, re-apply the style.
Select the lines below that should be restored to list formatting, and use the desired list command.

It should be perfectly fine now, but you can reload to make sure. The style assignment stays where it should be, the list remains a “real” list you can add new entries to, no marker doubling, etc.

I haven’t tried only doing some of that but not all of it. I’m not sure if it’s necessary to test for that, since the underlying formatting got so mangled to begin with.

I think the “bug” has left something behind in existing files. Or the function for assigning format styles is broken. Simply removing the incorrectly assigned formatting does not solve the problem, at least for me.

Well yes, that is going to be the case. We can’t fix the damage that was done, hence the checklist above to clean out all formatting, style codes, and plain-text list markers. The bug left them in the wrong places and semi-functional, and some of it is in areas Scrivener’s code can’t even get into, as Mac lists are a black box.