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Continuous list enumeration throughout the document with LaTeX

Karolina asked me today to create a macro for having a continuous list enumeration throughout the whole document, i.e.

This is the first list:

  1. Item;
  2. Another item;

And here goes the second list:

  1. Third item;
  2. And yet another item.

You can obtain an effect like that by using LaTeX counters and a custom definition of your own enumerate environment. First, we need to \usepackage{enumerate}, and then define the following counter and an environment in the preamble:

\newcounter{enumi_saved}

\newenvironment{myenumerate} {
    \begin{enumerate}\setcounter{enumi}{\value{enumi_saved}}}
    {\setcounter{enumi_saved}{\value{enumi}}\end{enumerate}}

After that, you can use myenumerate and you’ll have a continuous enumeration in the whole document.

Oh and some credits: I wouldn’t come up with a solution if I haven’t read this post, and this website. Huge thanks to the authors for their tips!