Are Side Heads possible?

[dougedwards47]

The question says it all - are side heads possible in Nisus Writer Pro? An example can be found here.

This is a page extracted from a Framemaker document that I need to convert to some current DP system (shame, clunky interface apart, FrameMaker did everything a document preparation system should do). If you are not sure what a sidehead is, the headings "Summary" or "Numeric types" are side headings; if the text to which they are tied moves, they move.

[Derick]

I set this up real quick with two styles.

1) using the ruler, change the Normal style to have First Line Indent and Left Indent = 1.5" (or wherever you want the main text to begin)

2) for a paragraph with side headings, start with a paragraph with style Normal, use the ruler to set First Line Indent = 0" , then add a tab stop at 1.5" . Create a new style based on this paragraph called Side Headed (or whatever) - I also set the Next Style for this new style to be Normal.

3) In a paragraph styled as Side Headed, type your heading , then hit tab and type the text of the paragraph.

Here's a sample document

You might also want to create a character style to use for the heading text itself - I didn't in the sample doc.

[scottwhitlock]

Wow!

[greenmorpher]

You might also want to create a character style to use for the heading text itself - I didn't in the sample doc.

Getting this running so that it is quick and easy to use without selecting each head and applying the Character Style to it throws up a problem with NW Styles.

For type formatting, Character Styles override Paragraph Styles, so if you have particular type specified in a Paragraph Style, applying a Character Style overrules it.

Fine so far.

But once you have a Character Style applied, you can't switch it off. Move on to a new paragraph with another Paragraph Style, and you find you STILL have the Character Style set previously overriding the character styling incorporated in the new Paragraph Style.

We need some way to not only APPLY Character Styles but to STOP applying them.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com[/code]

[scottwhitlock]

But once you have a Character Style applied, you can't switch it off. Move on to a new paragraph with another Paragraph Style, and you find you STILL have the Character Style set previously overriding the character styling incorporated in the new Paragraph Style.

We need some way to not only APPLY Character Styles but to STOP applying them.

There is a way to do this. Simply click the character style toggle in the status bar and then Remove Style. Alternatively, click Format -> Character Style -> Remove Character Style. This will remove the character style (and only the charcter style) from the new paragraph.

[greenmorpher]

Good thinking Scott -- but slightly major activity to achieve the end.

An "off" switch action, which could have a keyboard shortcut attached to it, would improve the workflow.

There would have to be two off switches, one for Character Styles and another for Pragraph Styles.

This has come up in other contexts too.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com

[dougedwards47]

Thanks for your help, but this is not quite what I require for two reasons:

1. It is not possible, as others have pointed out, to automatically have a character style applied to the sidehead independently of the following text. OK, it is possible to apply it manually, but that then rather negates the point of using styles in the first place.
2. The first line indent trick does not allow for the case where the sidehead wraps - as an example, look at this
   wrapped side head example

Here the sidehead "Enumerated types" wraps in the indent region allocated to it. The problem is I guess that in Framemaker, sideheads and Run-in heads are 1st class paragraph attributes.

[Hamid]

...The first line indent trick does not allow for the case where the sidehead wraps...

See if you can use the 'Margin notes' feature of Jer's Novel Writer for your purpose:
http://tinyurl.com/yppal8 (screenshot)

http://tinyurl.com/ynjoj4

You can give it a try:
http://tinyurl.com/246bs7

[Elbrecht]

It's a table thing you are looking for - to wrapp side heads - isn't it?

A friend of mine who is documentary asked me for this feature once: to handle two or even more columns - with synchronized headings for each set.

Does anyone know how to? - anyone actually doing it already? Stylish? ToC?

HE

[Derick]

on pt. 2 - You could work around the wrapping by setting Spacing After to 0 pt, & using two paragraphs for cases where there are multi-line side headings, but between this and character it is a lot of fiddling...

on pt. 1- One could probably write a macro to do an attribute sensitive search for paragraphs style as Side Heading, then apply the Character Style to all of the text up until the first tab as a way of avoiding setting them manually.

In theory, if the macro could detect cursor position one could write a macro to

if the paragraph is styled as Side Heading
- if the heading doesn't extend past the text L margin
-- apply the character style to the everything up to the tab
- elsif the heading extends past the text L margin
-- cut everything that extends past the L margin but is before the tab
-- apply the character style to everything left prior to the tab
-- set Spacing After to 0 and add a line break at the end of the line
-- set the style on the next paragraph to Side Heading and paste (at the beginning of the next paragraph) the cut text, styled with the character style, then add a tab

anyone want to translate that to perl?

[scottwhitlock]

Good thinking Scott -- but slightly major activity to achieve the end.

An "off" switch action, which could have a keyboard shortcut attached to it, would improve the workflow.

There would have to be two off switches, one for Character Styles and another for Pragraph Styles.

They're both menu items (one is for character and one is for paragraph). All you have to do is assign your own keyboard shutcut to them. Doesn't get much minor than that.

Scott

[Derick]

I can't imagine doing this with NWP tables as they're currently implemented, without the ability to set precise #s for widths etc. (currently you can only drag the borders).

[Elbrecht]

Hi Derick -

just tried for myself:

1) multiple Columns & single Row Table with Text pre-styled
2) setting up the precise width for each column once and for all
3) then Copy and Paste this Master Table for each set via
4) special Clipboard or maybe Macro would do for a start.

But you are right, specifying Table Width/Height etc isn't nice...

HE

[greenmorpher]

Good thinking Scott -- but slightly major activity to achieve the end.

An "off" switch action, which could have a keyboard shortcut attached to it, would improve the workflow.

There would have to be two off switches, one for Character Styles and another for Pragraph Styles.

They're both menu items (one is for character and one is for paragraph). All you have to do is assign your own keyboard shutcut to them. Doesn't get much minor than that.

Scott

You're right, Scott -- that's the off switch. Good grief! So to achieve the outset heads, we have a Paragraph Style for body text, and a Character Style for the heads. We start by applying both the Paragraph Style and the Character Style, type the head, hit the "Remove Character Style" shortcut, do the tab to get to the indent point, then continue typing in the Paragraph Style only.

Return to go to the next paragraph, hit the keyboard shortcut to start the Chracter Style for the outdented head again, type the head, keyboard shortcut to remove the Character Style, tab to body indent, etc.

Thanks for pointing me at that, Scott -- I was totally missing that "Remove Style" thing. I must stop thinking of "Stop Style".

So all that remains is to sort out the matter of multiple deck heads.

It ought to be noted that Doug is asking for NW to do something pretty powerful here. FrameMaker is/was (Adobe has just killed it, I think) a very sophisticated, specialised page layout program, and the only DTP program, to my knowledge, which would do the side heads thing with ease and grace.

The tables solution with the lines set to no colour seems to me to hold the best hope, but that won't run over page breaks.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com

[Derick]

Geoff-
why not just apply the paragraph style, type the heading, hit tab, type the paragraph, then select the heading and apply the character style? Or go back and style it later?

Of course it's a personal preference - I have been trying to separate writing and formatting into separate tasks (i.e. write in the morning when my mind is fresh, then format after lunch when I'm more burned out creatively but still want to make progress) & find it really helpful - where my writing could get interrupted for a few minutes trying to get some format exactly how I wanted it, now I just go on writing and leave the formatting aside to worry about later (also partly inspired by brief forays into LaTex and WriteRoom).
Derick