Nested bullet points more then 2 steps deep

Question

Hi, There are a LOT of older threads and closed tickets about this, but thought I would ask it again in case people have come up with better work arounds. I am moving a number of legal documents into confluence, and they need to have a structure like -

1: Section heading introductory text

1.1 Subsection * bullet 1 1. sub bullet 1 basically demanding 3 and sometimes 4 levels of bullet points, with flexibility on how they are numbered (sometimes just a *, other times they have actual numbers) I can do this by inserting unicode symbols instead of bullet points and doing a LOT of manual formatting, but would prefer to use confluences native formatting to speed things up. Anyone have any luck with ways to better format articles that demand bullet points be used and indented more then just 2 layers deep in confluence? As far as I can find its either manually format it, host it as HTML elsewhere and insert it, or go looking for 3rd party apps that will take a lot of time to vet and get through infosec checks. Thanks! -Lloyd

Barbara Szczesniak · Answer

@Lloyd Bullard As you can see in the response from @Cyrille Martin, you can do up to 6 levels of lists, but you cannot control the format of the bullet characters/numbers used at each level.

I think your other issue will be with indenting the H2 paragraph. If you are using only native Confluence features, are you manually numbering your headings (see https://community.atlassian.com/forums/App-Central-articles/Numbered-Headings-in-Confluence-3-kinds-of-solutions/ba-p/2315914)? This does not allow you to indent the heading and the paragraphs below it.

You can always vote for and watch this ticket (CONFCLOUD-1732), but it's been around since 2004 and the last status update from Atlassian is more than 3 years ago, so I wouldn't expect much action on it.

If you need to have full control over both heading and list numbering, along with indention of both, you may need to use a 3rd-party app. The linked article above and the comments on it mention some possible apps. Based on the comments, it looks like the article was originally published in October 2023, but shows it was last updated in January 2025.

Cyrille Martin · Answer

Hi @Lloyd Bullard

You can natively create the structure you mentioned in your post.

Here is what I have written in a Confluence page :

The issue that you may face with the numbered bullet is the "broken flow" when the number or letter resets his value. By pressing Shift + Enter we are maintaining it and the paragraph will be indented. We can have the following content :

I hope it helps you, or maybe I haven't understood your issue correctly.

Regards,