Balance column text doesn't

[stevenrowat]

Hi,
I'm using a two-column section in my document format (two columns on the same page) with one-column before and after, and I need good balancing of the column text.

Unfortunately I'm finding that Nisus is inconsistent about it (sometimes will do it if I force it to reformat a couple of times; sometimes won't do it).

In the example below I can't get it to do it at all. That last words in the left column ('and so on') should be at top of the right column, which would make the columns the same height and would remove the extra extending center post of the last line.

Widow/orphans is off, and balance text is on.

Any hints?

[martin]

Unfortunately column balancing is disabled/unavailable when footnotes are present; this is a known limitation, sorry. Endnotes and section notes do not have this limitation.

[stevenrowat]

Unfortunately column balancing is disabled/unavailable when footnotes are present; this is a known limitation, sorry. Endnotes and section notes do not have this limitation.

But that's an Endnote in my example.

So still not solved.

Plus, even if it's a footnote, I request you fix this in future.

Steven

[martin]

But that's an Endnote in my example.

Ah, quite right. I should have noticed, since the columns are balancing at all. I see what you mean, that the text isn't exactly balanced. Would you be able to send me your "blabbity" test document?

[stevenrowat]

But that's an Endnote in my example.

Ah, quite right. I should have noticed, since the columns are balancing at all. I see what you mean, that the text isn't exactly balanced. Would you be able to send me your "blabbity" test document?

Sure; that was just a screen shot that I Undid afterwards, but I've made another and zipped it. I'll upload it here. It's a copy of my setup (with the text made into blabbity). As I have set it up, the left column is two lines longer than the right; the right has an endnote.

Dang, it uploads but then it doesn't appear on the upload page or in preview. If it doesn't appear here I'll send to the feedback address.

Aha, I see that the file is too big; maximum size is 100KlB. That seems a bit small! . And it's only 106K.
I'll trim it, try again:

[Hamid]

It seems the column balancing bug occurs with the Times New Roman font.

[stevenrowat]

It seems the column balancing bug occurs with the Times New Roman font.

I tried this, and at first thought you were right: switching to Times (not New Roman), it balanced. But then I tried quickly switching also the size of the font, many times, with Palatino, Times, and Times New Roman, and found non-balances at both TNR and Palatino; and, most strange, at the end, for the first time, the TNR is now balanced at the same original font size. So I'm leaving it there. But I think the balancing bug is caused by something deeper -- although it may interact with font type (and size).

s.r.

[martin]

Thank you very much for recreating the problem and the sample file. Your intuition that the problem is deeper is correct, and the issue is not directly dependent on the font or font size. In fact, section notes (and/or endnotes) are also a red herring here.

Your document triggers the problem just by the way the mathematics work out for your column widths and line heights. That may not make too much sense on the face of it, but I can explain. You might think Nisus Writer counts the number of lines and places half in one column, and half in the other. But that's not how it works, because it's possible for a document to have lines of varying heights, or any other kind of irregular content. So the balancing act is one that relies on some area/height calculations.

In any case, I'll get this filed for fixing. Thanks again for the file!

[CrisB]

Hi Martin,

I have an A6 advert which fits four times on an A4 sheet of paper and I'd like each A6 piece to look the same as the others.

So how do I get the gap between the columns where I can put a line to be the same as the inner and outer margins on the page?

I've tried selecting part of the page as well as it all, but NWP > Table > Distribute Columns Evenly is greyed out. How can I get to use it?

There are no footnotes. What am I doing wrongly?

I'm using latest NWP 3.3 on my outdated Sierra 10.12.6 MacOS running on my 8 gig 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 MacMini.

warm regards, Cris
Saturday, 2023/03/18

[martin]

So how do I get the gap between the columns where I can put a line to be the same as the inner and outer margins on the page?

You should use the Columns palette for this purpose:

cols.png (32.9 KiB) Viewed 3505 times

You can use the "gutter" property to set the spacing between columns, and checkmark "line between columns" to add a dividing line.

I've tried selecting part of the page as well as it all, but NWP > Table > Distribute Columns Evenly is greyed out. How can I get to use it?

That entire menu is only for Tables. That command does not affect section columns.

[CrisB]

Thanks, that works and it now looks great.