# Numbering Paragraphs

How would one go about formatting paragraphs like the one above? Where the number (1) and (a) is to the side of the paragraph, without causing an indent?

Any help is appreciated!

• Welcome to TeX.SX! Please post what you've got so far as MWE. Have you considered using a list environment (in combination with enumitem for instance)? – TeXnician Feb 13 '17 at 21:10
• Welcome to TeX SX! 1 and (a) correspond to the numbering of what? – Bernard Feb 13 '17 at 21:10
• @TeXnician Sorry I am relatively new to TeX and don't have a lot of knowledge on the subject – andrew2324 Feb 13 '17 at 21:14
• @Bernard I am writing answers to a question paper and would like my format to look like the paragraph I showed above, so the 1 & (a) correspond to the number of the question I am answering. – andrew2324 Feb 13 '17 at 21:16

You can base a command on \llap to get the text in the left margin. Change the distance between the number and paragraph by changing {2em} in the definition. The \parskip and \parindent settings is just to have an empty row, and not indentation, at beginning of paragraph. It helps to see that the number does not affect the text.

\documentclass{article}
\parskip=1em
\parindent=0pt
\newcommand\ParNum[1]{\strut\llap{#1\rule{2em}{0pt}}\ignorespaces}
\begin{document}
First a normal paragraph.

\ParNum{1. (a)} The data, $y$, give time intervals (in seconds) between successive downloads of a new music video from a particular server. Blah blah blah.

\ParNum{2. (c)} This is a new paragraph.
\end{document}


Something like this?

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{enumitem}

\begin{document}

\begin{enumerate}[wide=0pt, label=\bfseries\arabic*.]\item \begin{enumerate}[wide=0pt, label=(\alph*)]
\item Example
Example example example example example example example example example
example example example example example example example example example example
example example example example example example example example example example
example example.

\item Another example. Another example, another example, another example, another example, another example, another example example, another example, another example, another example. \end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}


Or this, just adding leftmargin=*to both enumerate options: