What's the difference between the enumerate and enumitem packages?

Question

Is there an advantage to using the enumerate package over the enumitem package or vice versa? I use enumitem and my co-worker uses enumerate, and we're trying to decide which should be used when we collaborate.

Answer 1

use enumitem (I wrote enumerate)

Answer 2

The enumitem package is far more flexible when compared with enumerate. The latter provides an optional argument where you can specify the item number format using a generic representation while the former provides a key-value interface where one can specify number format representation in addition to a host of other list-related settings (or perform these settings globally). Here are two examples:

• Parenthesized lowercase roman numerals:

    % enumerate interface
    \begin{enumerate}[(i)]
      % Your list here
    \end{enumerate}
  
    % enumitem interface
    \begin{enumerate}[label = (\roman*)]
      % Your list here
    \end{enumerate}
  

• Bracketed uppercase alphabetic characters

    % enumerate interface
    \begin{enumerate}[{[A]}]
      % Your list here
    \end{enumerate}
  
    % enumitem interface
    \begin{enumerate}[label = {[\Alph*]}]
      % Your list here
    \end{enumerate}
  

The interface provided by enumitem is more intuitive and verbose (you specify label explicitly, including the counter representation format \Alph rather than A). Additionally, enumitem provides a host of other options, including

• separate label and ref keys for alternative references to labels,
• spacing adjustments (vertical and horizontal),
• in-line list enumeration,
• list continuation,
• new list style generation,
• ...

In short, enumitem provides a modern, user-friendly, key-value interface to many list manipulations, while enumerate is only geared towards short-hand list representation.