[Tex/LaTex] How to change the `enumerate` list format to use letters instead of the default Arabic numerals

Question

I've seen documentation whereby an \alph command is put around the \begin{enumerate} somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure how that operates…

Answer 1

Without any package you could do it by redefining the command \theenumi for formatting the enumi counter. (Also enumii, etc., for nested lists.)

\renewcommand{\theenumi}{\Alph{enumi}}

inside the environment.... Or better, you could use a package like enumitem which allows, e.g.,

\usepackage{enumitem}
...
\begin{enumerate}[label=\Alph*]
\item this is item a
\item another item
\end{enumerate}

Use \alph for lowercase letters, \Alph for uppercase, etc. See the package documentation for more info.