California Pleading format in v2

[JBB]

Any way to get a text box to appear on each page? I'm trying to use this to implement the long-awaited pleading format...

[Bob Stern]

Use Page Borders, not a text box. See user guide pages 281-282.

Here are some additional tips that I provided in response to questions on a listserv for lawyers who use Macs:

I don't see a way to create the double-line on the left and single line on the right?

In the Page Borders palette, the 4 icons along the upper right represent left, top, bottom and right borders, respectively. If all 4 icons are blue, click all but the left border icon to turn them white, leaving only the left border icon as blue. Now change the Style popup to set the left border to double without affecting the right border.

Also, the 1-28 line numbers appear to be tied to actual lines? So, inserting a table or an image or somesuch would throw them out of whack? (Or the text that has to be single-spaced, against double-spaced line numbering, like the attorney caption block on the first page of a pleading?)

The line numbers have a specified offset relative to the left margin of the text. This is the Gutter Width value in the Line Number palette. It is completely independent of the position of the left border line. After entering a desired value in the Gutter Width field, press return or tab.

Also, the page border lines don't continue to the top and bottom of the page, which looks awkward.

The page borders behave like a rectangle superimposed on the page. Even if the top and bottom borders are set to Thickness = None, these invisible top and bottom borders determine the upper and lower endpoints of the left and right borders.

Therefore, if you want the left and right borders to have the same vertical span as the text, but not extend into the header or footer area:
1. Click the Page Border icons as necessary so that only the top and bottom border icons are blue. For example, if all four icons in the upper right group are blue, click the left and right icons to turn them white.
2. Set Position popup to Text Margin.
3. Enter 0 in the value below the Position popup and press return or tab.

As an alternative example, if you wanted the left and right borders to extend the entire length of the page to the top and bottom edges of the paper, in Step 2 you would set the Position popup to Page Edge.

[martin]

Any way to get a text box to appear on each page?

Not so it draws outside the header for a pleading page as you would like to see.

Thanks for the detailed instructions Bob. I've attached a file that shows the results:

linenumbers.zrtf

pleading page using line numberes

(2.63 KiB) Downloaded 845 times

That kind of line numbering does appear on every page. However, the numbers are tied to the actual lines of text in your document, so your page must be configured to show exactly 26 lines of real document text too. That might be an issue for some.

Alternatively, you could anchor a floating text box to the first paragraph of the document:

textbox.zrtf

pleading page using a floating text box

(3.11 KiB) Downloaded 811 times

The line numbers there are not tied to the lines of text in the document's body. But the drawback is that the floating text box is anchored to only a single paragraph, and thus appears only on a single page.

[JBB]

But the drawback is that the floating text box is anchored to only a single paragraph, and thus appears only on a single page.

Ergo my question/suggestion about having the floating text box being able to repeat on each page. Pages can actually do this.

[martin]

I don't know why this didn't occur to me before, but a colleague suggested using a watermark. With that, it's actually pretty easy to have a pleading page. If you open the file I'm attaching here, you will see the numbers 1-26 on every page, independent of the actual number of lines of text. Let me know if this doesn't solve the issue for you!

[martin]

Ergo my question/suggestion about having the floating text box being able to repeat on each page. Pages can actually do this.

The just released Nisus Writer Pro version 2.0.5 handles this situation properly now, where floating text boxes are anchored to headers and must draw outside them. I'm attaching a pleading page that shows the technique.