formatting doesn't stick

mouthyorange · Post by **mouthyorange** » 2005-03-21 15:01:06

I've had this problem a number of times on a number of different documents and can't figure out what leads to it.

I'm writing away, using various formatting, particularly line changes, and I save and close up for the day. Next time I open, some of the formatting is gone!

Today's example: Working on a 5-page document with traditional indented first line for each paragraph. Day 1: Created the doc. Day 2: Re-opened doc and discovered -- curses -- that the LAST lines of the first eight or so paras were indented to the left to the same point as their correctly indented first lines! (Lines in between were flush left, as should be.) Clicking on any wayward last line and checking ruler settings, then similarly clicking on any other line in the same para, the ruler shows no change from what it should be. So apparently Express still considers the para to be one para, as opposed to having decided that the last line is now its own para that should start with a left-indent. But what formatting would left-indent the LAST line of any para? Interestingly, after these eight or so wayward paras, subsequent paras had no problems -- in other words, their last lines were flush left, as should be. How I fixed it: I went through each wayward para, placed cursor immediately before the wrongly indented first word of the last line, and backspaced (deleted) once. Word backed up to adjoin last word of previous line and pulled them both down to the front of the next (last) line. I hit the spacebar once to put it back in, the words separated again and the second word wrapped to the next (last) line again, but now it was flush left, as it should be. Saved my changes. Day 3: Re-opened today and last lines were wrongly indenting again, except now only two or three paras involved, not eight or so like yesterday! Rhyme or reason?
As I say, I've had this problem before, especially with indented first lines. Was a nightmare with an 18 page doc that I had to print out on separate to distribute professionally; each time I opened it I had to use valuable time combing it for format changes which seemed to occur in different paras at different times! Yet other times it doesn't happen.
Feels and acts like a bug. Are you Nice Us people onto this?

Post by **charles** » 2005-03-22 11:31:29

Hi:

This is a known issue. (In fact, I think it is in the forum somewhere.) There is a bug in Apple's text system that was introduced around 10.3.4 we think. It will sometimes display the last line of a paragraph using the first line indent. This has been fixed but not in 10.3 systems, unfortunately.

We have spent some time looking for ways to fix it in 10.3 ourselves, but short of rewriting the entire Apple text system we have not yet found a solution.

The best way to work around this issue is to instead set a tab stop and use tabs to indent. I know this is not ideal; we would like to make it work better for you also!

It is possible to reproduce this effect in other Cocoa applications, by the way, but since people don't usually use those apps in the same way, it does not appear as often.

-Charles

mouthyorange · Post by **mouthyorange** » 2005-03-22 12:43:44

Charles, thanks.
But I'm confused about the way you put things. You said the bug was introduced in 10.3.4 or thereabouts; but I'm using 10.3.0 at the moment, so unless you wrote a typo, either I shouldn't have that problem yet or else it started earlier than people think. Then, you say it has been fixed but not in 10.3, unfortunately. So, is it a problem in 10.3 or did you mean 10.2? I'm shortly going to be updating my Panther system to the most recent version (10.3.8, I think?) -- so will that cure it for me? Please clarify! And thanks again.

Anne Cuneo · Post by **Anne Cuneo** » 2005-03-23 11:30:07

Hi!
I think I was the one who complained several times because of that indent-in-the-wrong-place. And you are right: it's been there since 10.3.0, I think it was even there with 10.2, if I well remember. But this is a bug Apple should look after before Nisus can do anything about it. I can tell you, being on 10.3.8 that the bug is NOT fixed!
I also loose formatting here and there without understanding why, even though it has got better and better with each new build.
I have just written a 35'000 word-novel in one single file (YES), with 12 chapters (=sections), all the problems I had with my previous book have disappeared, except for the indent...

Anne Cuneo · Post by **Anne Cuneo** » 2005-03-23 11:31:56

Hi!
I think I was the one who complained several times because of that indent-in-the-wrong-place. And you are right: it's been there since 10.3.0, I think it was even there with 10.2, if I well remember. But this is a bug Apple should look after before Nisus can do anything about it. I can tell you, being on 10.3.8 that the bug is NOT fixed!
I also loose formatting here and there without understanding why, even though it has got better and better with each new build.
I have just written a 35'000 word-novel in one single file (YES), with 12 chapters (=sections), all the problems I had with my previous book have disappeared, except for the indent...

Tacitus · Post by **Tacitus** » 2005-03-25 11:01:52

charles wrote:Hi:

The best way to work around this issue is to instead set a tab stop and use tabs to indent. I know this is not ideal; we would like to make it work better for you also!

-Charles

This doesn't work for me. I have tried putting a tab stop in the footnote style and no way will this stick. Since I use footnotes a lot this is a real downer for me and I think I will have to import the final doc into Word simply to get the thing formatted correctly.

Can't see any way round it until 10.4 unless there is something in the rumoured 10.3.9 update.

cheers,

Tacitus

Post by **charles** » 2005-03-26 01:53:13

Hi:

I'm sorry my last post wasn't clear! This bug will not be fixed in any 10.3 release that I know of. We never encountered this bug until later in the 10.3 series; I'm sorry to hear it has existed even earlier!

-Charles

Tacitus · Post by **Tacitus** » 2005-03-26 06:50:43

charles wrote:Hi:

I'm sorry my last post wasn't clear! This bug will not be fixed in any 10.3 release that I know of. We never encountered this bug until later in the 10.3 series; I'm sorry to hear it has existed even earlier!

-Charles

The real irony of all this is that I can honestly say that the only WP which, at least on stratightforward docs, has not given me any grief is Word Vx. OK it's bloated and overkill for most things, but it works.

Thankfully, it will also import NWE docs with no probs so I can at least do the formatting there.

Tacitus