Underline

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ngazidja
Posts: 152
Joined: 2005-01-23 17:12:16

Underline

Post by ngazidja »

A very long time ago I drew up a document which had subheadings (that I created without using a style) that had underlines that were 1. right acorss the page (I used spaces, not tabs, presumably because I couldn't work out how to do it using tabs) and 2. further from the text than is usual (ie more of a gap between the text and the underline than the underline usually has).

I have no idea how to duplicate this, and copy/paste the paragraph in question doesn't work, the underline goes back to a normal distance from the text.

Anyone know how I can do this? I have tried the paragraph borders palette, but the underline is too far from the text, and the vertical padding (unlike the horizontal) won't accept a negative number.

Thanks!

Iain.
adryan
Posts: 561
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Underline

Post by adryan »

G’day, Iain et al

I’m not quite sure what you want here, Iain. To my eye, the line inserted by the Paragraph Borders palette is as close as one would like to the text above, if the purpose is to set off a (sub-) heading. The only thing closer would be an actual underline character. Paragraph Borders is intelligent enough to recognize Left and Right Indents.

The Underline Tab places a line at the baseline, too high for your present purpose. This also means that the Underline Tab places its line slightly higher than an actual underline character, so it’s something of a misnomer. This could be something that needs fixing (merely by changing its name?!), but it would be pretty low down on my list of priorities.

Another possibility is to insert a line as a Shape that “Moves with paragraph". Then you could position it vertically wherever you wish, and Copy and Paste a dummy sub-heading with its accompanying line elsewhere in your manuscript as well.

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
ngazidja
Posts: 152
Joined: 2005-01-23 17:12:16

Re: Underline

Post by ngazidja »

Hi Adrian,

Sorry, my reply doesn't seem to have been posted. But I said thanks :) and that I'd probably be satisfied with paragraph borders.

For the record I seem to have set (on my original document) the underline baseline at +5 pt, but quite how I have no idea, and as I say, even if I save this setting as a style the baseline reverts to 0. A mystery.
ngazidja
Posts: 152
Joined: 2005-01-23 17:12:16

Re: Underline

Post by ngazidja »

And even curiouser - if I try and copy past, as soon as I select some text to copy the baseline offset reverts to 0 before I even copy, never mind try and paste it elsewhere. But as we know, my NWP does curious things.
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martin
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Re: Underline

Post by martin »

Ian: could you please send me your document via the menu Help > Send Feedback? I'd like to see if I can also observe the problem where the baseline resets. Thanks!
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martin
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Re: Underline

Post by martin »

In communicating with Iain privately, we've learned the following about his underline's strange behavior:

The effect seems to be a quirk of the OSX text engine, which Nisus Writer uses. If you include a non-breaking space after some underlined text, the underline will draw to the end of the page and with any applied baseline. If you follow the underlined text with a regular space (or no space) the underline is not extended and uses the regular text baseline.

I can only assume the behavior is unintended, but it might also be some kind of irregular "feature" of the OSX text engine. It's best not to rely on it, and use our paragraph border feature instead.
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