Formatting Issue - Tabs in justified text

Hi everybody,

I'm using Ventura 10. I've been having this annoying problem for a long time, and I haven't found a solution, up to now. I'm sure everyone of you ran into this at a certain time...

The problem occurs in hanging paragraphs with justified text, which contain a Horiz.Tab. that should determine the left margins of all the following lines. Something like that (not shown justified here; I hope it comes out the way it should look like):

Description:         This  is  text  without  meaning. This is text  without meaning.
                       This is text without meaning. This is text without meaning. This
                       is text without meaning. This is text without meaning.

The problem lies in the fact that the tab stop does not seem to be a fixed point within the line, but - because the text is justified - it moves to the right, depending on how much space is added to the space between the words. This problem only refers to the first line of the paragraph. In all the following lines, the left margin is located where it is supposed to be.

Any advice? Thanks a lot in advance...

Hans

 

Hans --

Not quite sure how you have your paragraph tag set up, but I was not able to duplicate your problem. So, I suspect you have it set up a bit differently than I did it -- which means that my method may be the solution you're seeking. Let's assume you want a justified paragraph with a 1.0 " hanging indent and you want to align something in the first line with the indent:

1. Open the Paragraph Tag Properties.
2. Under Tabs, delete all tabs, then add a left tab at 1.0 inches.
3. Under Align (for the tag), set the Horizontal alignment to Justified, set Paragraph indents|In from left to 1.0 inches, and set Line Indents to 1 line and -1.0 inches.

That should do what you want.

Hello Hans

I vaguely recall reading complaints about tabs in justified text some years back, but it's been a long time. I just set up a paragraph per your example. Thus far, I've been unable to break it so long as there is only one tab involved in the outdent alignment.

IOW,  if the first tab and In From Left have equal values, and the outdent value is equal to it or less, everything lines up as expected. If I insert a second tab between "Description" and "This", then it behaves the way you describe.

Could you post your paragraph settings? Perhaps I'm missing something.

Allison

Yep, only ONE tab is the key. With more than one tab, the text result is
someone staggering home after an office party. This has bean a defect in
Ventura since the day someone sat down to program the first version. It
SHOULD work like Word Perfect but never has.


amoore wrote:
>
> Hello Hans
>
> I vaguely recall reading complaints about tabs in justified text some
> years back, but it's been a long time. I just set up a paragraph per
> your example. Thus far, I've been unable to break it so long as there
> is only one tab involved in the outdent alignment.
>
> IOW, if the first tab and In From Left have equal values, and the
> outdent value is equal to it or less, everything lines up as expected.
> If I insert a second tab between "Description" and "This", then it
> behaves the way you describe.
>
>

Thanks to all for the fast answers...

However, they did not help. I always did it in the same way as eweber proposed, and I've always only used one single tab as well... For reproducing this case, here are the details:

A4, Portrait, Margins, all sides: 25,4mm

Paragraph Properties:
Font: AGaramond, 12,0 pt.
Align, Horizontal: Justified (Last Line Left)
Paragraph Indents: In left 40,0 mm,
Line Indents: 1 line, amount: -40,0 mm

USED TEXT:

[italic start]Quelle der Abbildungen[italic end]:[1 Tab at 40mm]Retrato Archive, Filipinas Heritage Library, Makati City; Photo ID: PE02579 und PE02580; Fotograf: Regalado Trota Jose, 1985.

The only workaround I found out was writing "Quelle-der-Abbildungen" and then formatting the "-" in white color, which is rather absurd. If there would exist something like a "non-breaking space" with a fixed width, which I could could use for substituting the normal space character, then it would work, but with the "non-breaking space" of Ventura, is does not...

Thanks again...

Huhhh? Take your choice of n-space, m-space, thin space--all are fixed
width non-breaking.

ruppig wrote:
>
> If there would exist something like a "non-breaking space" with a
> fixed width, which I could could use for substituting the normal space
> character, then it would work, but with the "non-breaking space" of
> Ventura, is does not...
>
>

Ah... ok... sorry... I got confused...

Yes, if you produce a "solid block" of characters with fixed widths, without any spaces, on the left side of the tab, it works, but it's certainly not an elegant method...

Thanks

Ok, I think I've got it. I set up a document using your specs and text. The only thing I couldn't duplicate specifically was the typeface, since I don't have that flavor of Garamond. I don't have a condensed Garamond of any sort, so I wasn't able to check it that way either. However...

Using each of the Garamond typefaces I have, I replicated your problem. To get the paragraph to hold together — even with  your white text workaround — I had to reduce the size of the font. For example, using ClassGarmndBT, I had to go down to 10.8pt with tracking set to -1.0 ems% to keep the first line from breaking. I also replicated it with a couple of other typefaces. When I use a typeface with slimmer or smaller glyphs, the problem goes away.

It looks as if Ventura doesn't see enough space between the hanging text and the tab. The answer is to change your specs to accommodate the typeface or change the typeface to accommodate the specs.

If the hanging text needs to run past (or even very close to) the In From Left value, you can try the 2-paragraph solution. Paragraph 1 would be the hanging text with Line Break set to Before (no outdent needed), and Paragraph 2 would be the rest of the text  with Line Break set to After. For Paragraph 2, you would also turn on Add Width of Preceding Line and perhaps add a Before Text value of a couple of spaces.

Thanks a lot for the effort, amoore...

I know the 2-paragraph solution, which I used in other instances. Regarding the relevance of typefaces, I'm not so sure about it... I think it really has something to do with the fact that Ventura does not really make a difference if the paragraph is an ordinary justified one or a justified one, which is hanging and has a tab in it. What Ventura should do is cutting the line apart at those points where the tabs are, consider everything on the left side of the tabs as left-oriented and only deal with everything else right to the LAST, most-right tab, up to the end of the line, as justified. So, the tabs should actually break the line apart at fixed points, which should remain fixed. However, Ventura moves the tab to the right side, just like any other character, to make a line justified.

Just try the following: insert spaces right BEFORE the tab, and you will see that the point where you set the tab will move to the right. It does not go together anymore with where you see the tab set in the ruler. This is awkward! So, rule #1 is: remove all spaces before any horiz.tabs. To make it clearer: there should never be a sequence like [space][space][tab], but simply [tab].

What is usually affected for making a line justified, in the first place, are the spaces (in the second place the distances between the individual characters, of course). They will become more or less wider to fill the whole width of the line. So, what I did, as I wrote before already, is substituting the variable normal spaces between all those words, which are left to the tab stop, with spaces of fixed width. These can be "n-spaces" or "m-spaces", which look too wide; I prefer "thin spaces" because they are closer to the normal spaces in width. In the copy editor, I replaced "Quelle der Abbildungen" with "Quelle<I>der<I>Abbildungen", and it worked quite well. It's a workaround, but at least it's more convenient than the 2-paragraph solution, and it worked in all instances, in my document.

Well, I think, at this point, nothing more convenient can be found... So, thanks everybody... wishing you a relaxing weekend,

Hans

Dear Hans,

It is not quite clear to me what you are trying to achieve with this tabbed paragraph. If merely a long space between the <I>Quel....ungen<I> and the rest of the paragraph, then may I suggest another way?

Use the "effects" under the paragraph tag -- i.e. Drop Cap.

Define the drop down as the same font as the normal paragraph (you can make them italic here as well if you wish), then add space between the drop cap and the rest of the paragraph. Define the drop cap for one or however many words it is (you may have to define a couple of tags, or over-ride, depending on the text you want separated from the keyword).

It replicates the two paragraph solution. It is all done within the Ventura publishing model -- paragraph tagging.

Does this do what you want? It preserves your justification and keeps a longish space -- all without any text modification. Then you can define the paragraph indents, outdents, etc. as you wish.

Regards,

Stilman Davis

Hello...

I'm not so sure if I understood your method correctly, but by using the drop cap menu, I was able to produce a kind of hanging paragraph. However, the text left to the tab is only limited to up to 2 words. And it's just the same like before: the text moves to the right...

I uploaded two sample pages, which will hopefully clarify the problem, the first page showing the moving right of the text, the second page showing the correction by using "thin spaces". Please, look for the pages here:

http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~brandeis/PDF/Hans_Sample_Page.pdf

Best regards,

Hans

 

You can say how many words you need, just type in for instance 5 words. It works.

Define the paragraph with your left margin as you wish, add the tab to line up with your left margin. Add the tab after the space in your text and you are done.

I found it important to keep the space there.

That should give you the look you want.

Another solution is this -- if the text is always the same with the particular paragraphs, add it as text before in the paragraph style (different tags for each of the different preambles to the changing paragraph texts) then add a tab before the paragraph text. Then define the effects as before.

I see what you mean, Hans. Is the change in line ending on the second line of the paragraph that begins "Die Laute" related to this issue, or did you manually change that one?