HTML Lists Ordered List

Help us to keep this website almost Ad Free! It takes only 10 seconds of your time:
> Step 1: Go view our video on YouTube: EF Core Bulk Extensions
> Step 2: And Like the video. BONUS: You can also share it!

Example

An ordered list can be created with the <ol> tag and each list item can be created with the <li> tag as in the example below:

<ol>
  <li>Item</li>
  <li>Another Item</li>
  <li>Yet Another Item</li>
</ol>

This will produce a numbered list (which is the default style):

  1. Item
  2. Another Item
  3. Yet Another Item

Manually changing the numbers

There are a couple of ways you can play with which numbers appear on the list items in an ordered list. The first way is to set a starting number, using the start attribute. The list will start at this defined number, and continue incrementing by one as usual.

<ol start="3">
  <li>Item</li>
  <li>Some Other Item</li>
  <li>Yet Another Item</li>
</ol>

This will produce a numbered list (which is the default style):

  1. Item
  2. Some Other Item
  3. Yet Another Item

You can also explicitly set a certain list item to a specific number. Further list items after one with a specified value will continue incrementing by one from that list item's value, ignoring where the parent list was at.

<li value="7"></li>

It is also worth noting that, by using the value attribute directly on a list item, you can override an ordered list's existing numbering system by restarting the numbering at a lower value. So if the parent list was already up to value 7, and encountered a list item at value 4, then that list item would still display as 4 and continue counting from that point again.

<ol start="5">
  <li>Item</li>
  <li>Some Other Item</li>
  <li value="4">A Reset Item</li>
  <li>Another Item</li>
  <li>Yet Another Item</li>
</ol>

So the example above will produce a list that follows the numbering pattern of 5, 6, 4, 5, 6 - starting again at a number lower than the previous and duplicating the number 6 in the list.

Note: The start and value attributes only accept a number - even if the ordered list is set to display as Roman numerals or letters.

5

You can reverse the numbering by adding reversed in your ol element:

<ol reversed>
  <li>Item</li>
  <li>Some Other Item</li>
  <li value="4">A Reset Item</li>
  <li>Another Item</li>
  <li>Yet Another Item</li>
</ol>

Reverse numbering is helpful if you're continually adding to a list, such as with new podcast episodes or presentations, and you want the most recent items to appear first.


Changing the type of numeral

You can easily change the type of numeral shown in the list item marker by using the type attribute

<ol type="1|a|A|i|I">
TypeDescriptionExamples
1Default value - Decimal numbers1,2,3,4
aAlphabetically ordered (lowercase)a,b,c,d
AAlphabetically ordered (uppercase)A,B,C,D
iRoman Numerals (lowercase)i,ii,iii,iv
IRoman Numerals (uppercase)I,II,III,IV

You should use ol to display a list of items, where the items have been intentionally ordered and order should be emphasized. If changing the order of the items does NOT make the list incorrect, you should use <ul>.



Got any HTML Question?