Re: org-list-allow-alphabetical LaTeX export

[Josiah Schwab <jschwab@gmail.com>]

> On 6 jun. 2013, at 10:20, Michael Bach <phaebz <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>> The LaTeX exporter does not honor the setting of org-list-allow-alphabetical.  

A week or so ago I asked a similar question about the HTML export and lists.
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2013-05/msg01324.html
So I just wanted to toss in my 2¢.

On Jun 6, 2013, at 2:17 AM, Carsten Dominik wrote:
> Conventions about the type of bullet to be used in a document belong to the typesetting side, and I rather establish a global setting for a document than follow my momentary decisions when I write the Org-mode version of it.  On a similar vein, we do have lists starting with - and * and +, but we still let LaTeX and HTML choose what to use as a bullet.  To me this feels like the right behavior.

I think this argument makes sense;  and to be honest, that's probably how I want the exporter to behave most of the time.

However, there is particular use case where I find this frustrating, which is writing problem sets.  There I like to reference other parts of the problems by name.  For example, 

a) Do something.
b) Use your answer in part a) to do something else.

Then, if I want to export it to multiple formats (say, html and pdf), there is no general way to tell orgmode: "my alphabetical bullet choice was meaningful, please try to preserve it".  One ends up inserting little workarounds for each export format.  Which is not a big deal, but when everything else works so seamlessly it's these little things that stand out :)

Best,
Josiah