Margins inconsistent between Sections

[Bob Stern]

I often have trouble applying uniform margins to all sections of a document. Selecting the entire document and then changing the margins only affects the first section.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any workaround?

If it's relevant, I mainly use sections to alternate between a one column layout and and a two column layout within the same page.

[Groucho]

Hi, Bob.
Are you changing margins by dragging them?
If so, you must use the Margins palette, instead. Select all, click on the Sections Palette Group in the drawer and go to Margins palette. Enter a numeric value or click on the sliders.

Cheers, Henry

[Bob Stern]

The margins I have been trying to adjust are top, bottom and footer. I am using the Margins Palette.

Subsequent to my initial post, I have been using Section breaks to apply line numbering to only certain portions of a document. When I do command-A to select the entire document, changing the margins for top, bottom and footer in the Margins Palette only changes the first section.

I cannot find any way to change the margins consistently throughout the document other than moving the cursor to each section and manually setting the margins in the Margins Palette. This is a serious problem.

Can anyone suggest a method for setting the top, bottom and footer margins that will apply to all sections?

(These margins cannot be incorporated in a Paragraph Style.)

[Groucho]

I just tried on an 8-section 355-page document. I selected all (Cmd-A) then changed the margins through the palette. All the pages were affected,not just the first section's. I think there is something amiss with you document or application. Or, maybe, line numbering is conflicting with section layout. Have you tried without line numbering?
I'd suggest you send a copy to the Nisus via Help > Send Feedback, anyway.

Greetings, Henry.

[Bob Stern]

I figured out what's happening. It works exactly as documented in the User Guide.

I had been changing the top, bottom and footer margins by clicking the up/down arrows in the Margins Palette. I discovered that this increments the margins in all the selected sections of the document by that increment, rather than conforming them to the displayed numerical value. For example, if section 1 has a top margin of 1 and section 2 has a top margin of 1.5, selecting the entire document and clicking the top margin up arrow changes the top margin to 1.1 in section 1 and 1.6 in section 2. Although contrary to my expectation, this is the correct behavior according to the NWP 1.1 User Guide pp. 111-112, under the heading "Set the margins by “stepping” through pre-set increments."

However, if I instead move the cursor inside a numerical field in the Margins Palette and then press Tab or Return, all selected sections of the document are conformed to that numerical setting. This works regardless of whether I change the numerical value before pressing Tab or Return.

This raises a new issue that is a bit scary because it is not clearly documented in the User Guide. I would not expect that pressing Tab without changing any numerical value would conform all selected sections to that value. I would expect that behavior from Return but not Tab.

[Groucho]

Thanks for your tip, Bob. I wasn't aware of that behavior.

Henry.

[withoutFeathers]

Thanks for your tip, Bob. I wasn't aware of that behavior.

Henry.

Thanks, me neither.

I think this should be documented better. It was frustrating.

"How do you change multiple sections to have identical edge, header and footer margins?" is a question that the manual appears to be answering, but actually isn't.

Not only because of this, I vote for a rewrite of the manual, by different writers, and having it put online searchable by hypertext.

The mental organization of the people who wrote the current one has often baffled me. Or maybe it's a 'too many cooks spoil the broth' problem, not sure. But there have been some strange loose ends in there.

WF.