AutoListicle: Automatically Update Numbered List Articles

Easily keep your listicles with numbered lists updated correctly by using this plugin’s shortcode [auto-list-number]. This will display the number 1 and increment with every use. Perfect if you write blog posts with steps or “top 10 lists”. This will allow you to easily add items to your lists or move elements around without worrying about updating headings with the correct numbers.

New in 1.5: the item count in post and SEO titles (“17 Best Coffee Grinders” stays correct as you add items), numbering that continues across paginated posts, a block editor panel and toolbar button, ordinal and word formats, and optional ItemList schema.

Count in titles

Put this in the post title and it shows the number of items in the post:

[auto-list-number display="total"] Best Coffee Grinders

It works in the page title, the browser tab, RSS feeds, the REST API, the titles and descriptions of Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress and The SEO Framework, and the social tags of Yoast SEO, Rank Math and SEOPress. In SEO title templates you can also use %%autolisticle_total%% (Yoast, SEOPress) or %autolisticle_total% (Rank Math). The count is kept out of the URL WordPress makes from the title. Add name="my-list" to count a named list and format="words" for “Seventeen”.

Block editor

Choose “Insert list number” from the More menu (the arrow) of the text toolbar to add [auto-list-number] at the cursor. The AutoListicle panel in the post sidebar shows how many items the post has, and its “Number headings automatically” switch numbers every heading of the chosen level with no shortcodes at all.

Paginated posts

In posts split into pages with the Page Break block, numbering carries on from page to page, and countdown, position (“4 of 12”) and total displays count every page. To number a page by hand, give its first item a start value.

Number headings automatically

Add this once, above your list, and every H2 that follows gets a number in front of it:

[auto-list-number-headings]

It takes the same options as the item shortcode, plus level to pick the heading tag:

[auto-list-number-headings level="h3" display="countdown" before="#" after=""]

Numbers are wrapped in a span with the class “auto-list-number” so you can style them (set wrapper=”none” to skip the span). Headings above the shortcode are left alone, and a second [auto-list-number-headings] starts a new count from where it sits.

Shortcode Usage examples

Basic usage

[auto-list-number] Item one.
[auto-list-number] Item two.
[auto-list-number] Item three.

Countdown example (for “Top 10” style lists)

[auto-list-number display="countdown"] Best item (displays 3)
[auto-list-number display="countdown"] Second best (displays 2)
[auto-list-number display="countdown"] Third best (displays 1)

Position display example

[auto-list-number display="position"] First item (displays "1 of 3")
[auto-list-number display="position"] Second item (displays "2 of 3")
[auto-list-number display="position"] Third item (displays "3 of 3")

Custom start number (for multi-part articles)

[auto-list-number start="11"] This displays 11
[auto-list-number] This displays 12
[auto-list-number] This displays 13

Number formats

[auto-list-number format="roman"] Displays I, II, III, IV...
[auto-list-number format="alpha"] Displays A, B, C, D...
[auto-list-number format="padded"] Displays 01, 02, 03...

Before and after text

[auto-list-number before="#" after=":"] Displays "#1:"
[auto-list-number before="Step " after=" -"] Displays "Step 2 -"

Spaces inside the quotes are kept. An underscore also works as a space (before=”Step_”), which older versions required.

Extended example using all shortcode functions.

Here is my list of [auto-list-number display="total"] items.

[auto-list-number] Here is the first item in the list.
[auto-list-number] Make long listicles with ease.
[auto-list-number] You can even have multiple lists in one article.
 [auto-list-number name="my-new-list" after=":" wrapper="span"] My new list (this will start at number one).
 [auto-list-number name="my-new-list" after=":" wrapper="span"] This will be a second item.
[auto-list-number] This item will be number 4.

Shortcode Options

• name (Default: “default”) If your article has multiple lists this will keep track of multiple numbers. If a name isn’t set it will just use the list name of “default”. But if you have multiple numbered lists you want to keep track of you can use a unique name for each list in your article.
• wrapper (Default: none) Wrap each number in an HTML tag such as span, div, strong, em, small, sup, li or a heading tag. The wrapper always gets the class “auto-list-number” plus “auto-list-number-3” for the third item, which is helpful if you want to style list numbers separately from your headings. Other tags fall back to span.
• before (Default: “”) Text to display before the number, for prefixes like “#” or “Step “.
• after (Default: “.”) Text to display after the number. Set it to “” to show the bare number.
• start (Default: 1) Set a custom starting number. Perfect for multi-part articles where Part 2 should start at number 11 instead of 1. Only the first item of a list needs it.
• format (Default: none) Change the number format. Options:
  • “roman” – Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, V…)
  • “alpha” – Alphabetic letters (A, B, C, D… Z, AA, AB…)
  • “padded” – Zero-padded numbers (01, 02, 03…)
  • “ordinal” – 1st, 2nd, 3rd…
  • “words” – One, Two, Three… (English, up to Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine)

• display (Default: “increase”) Controls how the number is displayed. Options:

  • “increase” – Default behavior, counts up (1, 2, 3…)
  • “countdown” – Counts down from total (10, 9, 8…) – perfect for “Top 10” style lists
  • “total” – Displays the total count of items
  • “position” – Displays “X of Y” format (e.g., “3 of 10”)

• schema (Default: none) Set to “itemlist” on any item of a list to output ItemList structured data (JSON-LD) for it. See below.

[auto-list-number-headings] accepts wrapper, before, after, start, format, schema and display (increase or countdown), plus level (Default: “h2”) for the heading tag to number.

ItemList schema

Add schema=”itemlist” to one item of a list (or to [auto-list-number-headings]) and the post outputs ItemList structured data for it, with each item’s number, name and a link to its heading when the heading has an HTML anchor. It is off by default: Google currently shows list rich results only for recipes, courses, movies and restaurants, so for most listicles it is descriptive markup rather than a search feature.

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble with a table of contents plugin you can use the [auto-list-number-force-reset] shortcode to reset your post’s numbers. So ideally if your table of contents was at the top of your post you can put [auto-list-number-force-reset] below it so that all headings are reset to start at 1 again. This way the ToC plugin will loop through 1-4 for example then reset then the headlines can display 1-4 again.

Developers can allow extra wrapper tags with the auto_list_number_wrapper_tags filter, add or translate number formats with auto_list_number_format, and turn ItemList schema on for every list with add_filter( 'auto_list_number_itemlist_schema', '__return_true' );.