Fixing Inconsistent Formatting in Numbered Lists

I don't intend to be very active on this blog for the next few months for double top secret reasons that may or may not have to do with the characters C, S, and 5. I'll focus on short and sweet posts, like this one.

Here's a little tidbit from the Format a bulleted or numbered list Help topic.

When you italicize or bold the first word of a bulleted or numbered list paragraph, the formatting is applied to the number as well, making it inconsistent with the rest of the numbering. Like this:

See how the number 3 is italicized just like the first word? That's ugly. So what's the solution? Apply a character style to the numbering. Here's what it says in Help:

By default, bullets and numbers inherit some of their text formatting from the first character in the paragraph to which they're attached. If the first character in one paragraph is different from the first characters in other paragraphs, the numbering or bullet character may appear inconsistent with the other list items. If this is not the formatting you desire, create a character style for numbers or bullets and apply it to your list by using the Bullets And Numbering dialog box.

Now, back to the fun stuff!