# Cannot specify enumeration label in Frontiers style

I am using the Frontiers style (FrontiersSCNS.cls) and could not find a way to change the enumeration label. In all other styles, I could easily do something like this:

\begin{enumerate}[label=(\alph*)]
\item this is the first item,
\item this is the second item
\end{enumerate}


But with this style, no matter what I select it always produces the \arabic* format. this question is specific to this style and I believe somewhere anything I do is being overwritten.

A working example for testing:

\documentclass[utf8]{frontiersSCNS}
\usepackage{url,hyperref,lineno,microtype}
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}

\linenumbers
\def\keyFont{\fontsize{8}{11}\helveticabold }
\def\firstAuthorLast{X {et~al.}}

\begin{document}
\onecolumn
\firstpage{1}

\title[Title]
\maketitle

\section{Section 1}
\begin{enumerate}%[label=(\alph*)]
\item first item
\item second item
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}


What I have tried:

1. adding \usepackage{enumitem} in the cls file produces the following error: Latex Error: Environment description undefined

2. Something like this also did not had any effect:

\setlist[enumerate,1]{label=\textit{\alph*)}}
\usepackage{enumerate}


It seems this class is incompatible with enummitem … because it defines nodescription environment.

Two work-arounds: either you load enumerate and use its syntax to modify the label, or you redefine the label by hand, with:

\renewcommand\labelenumi{(\alph{enumi})}


Here is a code with the first solution:

\documentclass[utf8]{frontiersSCNS}
\usepackage{url,hyperref,lineno,microtype}
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}
\usepackage{enumerate}
\linenumbers
\def\keyFont{\fontsize{8}{11}\helveticabold }
\def\firstAuthorLast{X {et~al.}}

\begin{document}
\onecolumn
\firstpage{1}

\title[Title]
\maketitle

\section{Section 1}
\begin{enumerate}[(a) ]
\item first item
\item second item
\end{enumerate}

\end{document


Edit:

Following a suggestion of Phelype Oleinik, we can load enumitem with this class, defining an empty description environment first. Here is an example code which yields the same result as above:

\documentclass[utf8]{frontiersSCNS}
\usepackage{url,hyperref,lineno,microtype}
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}

\newenvironment{description}{}{}
\usepackage{enumitem}

\linenumbers
\def\keyFont{\fontsize{8}{11}\helveticabold }
\def\firstAuthorLast{X {et~al.}}

\begin{document}
\onecolumn
\firstpage{1}

\title[Title]
\maketitle
\section{Section 1}
\begin{enumerate}[label = (\alph*), wide = 0pt, leftmargin =* ]%[(a) ]
\item first item
\item second item
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

• Maybe you could \def\description{} before loading enumitem. The output looks strange though... – Phelype Oleinik Jul 24 '18 at 22:35
• @PhelypeOleinik: I've made an edit to follow your idea and use enumitem. However I had to specify some more parameters to obtain an acceptable result. – Bernard Jul 24 '18 at 22:52