Question

Is it possible to prepend an ordered list with the Pound Sign or the Hash Symbol?

Like this:

#1. something
#2. something else
#3. another thing
...

Answer 1

Here’s a solution following the hints suggested by this answer:

HTML:

<ol class="custom">
    <li>First item</li>
    <li>Second item</li>
    <li>Third item</li>
</ol>

CSS:

ol.custom {
  list-style-type: none;
  margin-left: 0;
}

ol.custom > li {
  counter-increment: customlistcounter;
}

ol.custom > li:before {
  content: "#" counter(customlistcounter);
  font-weight: bold;
  float: left;
  width: 3em;
}

ol.custom:first-child {
  counter-reset: customlistcounter;
}

The “custom” classname just makes it possible to revert to the original behavior; if you take it out, this will apply to all ol tags using this stylesheet. Note the limitations introduced by using the :before pseudo-selector: IE6 and IE7 will have trouble with this.