Line numbers and tables.

Everything related to our flagship word processor.
Post Reply
Vanceone
Posts: 211
Joined: 2013-05-03 07:06:31

Line numbers and tables.

Post by Vanceone »

So I turned on line numbering (the automatic numbers that go down the left column) and set it to reset each page; this is a legal pleading.

Imagine my surprise to see that the table I had inserted did not have line numbers! Instead, the table was considered as one line.

Exactly how do I have line numbers that also count the lines in a table?
adryan
Posts: 561
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by adryan »

G’day, Vanceone et al

It works as expected for me. Each row of a table has a corresponding line number in the left margin, regardless of whether there is other text on the page or not. The tables I used were ones created within Nisus Writer Pro itself, not objects pasted from elsewhere.

I wonder whether a relaunch of NWP would help in your situation.

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
User avatar
phspaelti
Posts: 1313
Joined: 2007-02-07 00:58:12
Location: Japan

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by phspaelti »

Actually, Nisus "line" numbers are paragraph numbers. They number paragraphs. They also number table rows, but they don't number paragraphs inside a table cell.

Vanceone, since you are looking for legal pleading you might want to look at the discussion—and solution—here.
philip
adryan
Posts: 561
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by adryan »

G’day, Philip et al

“Actually, Nisus ‘line’ numbers are paragraph numbers.”

I don’t know about that, Philip. If I use (for example) the Lorem Ipsum macro to insert 3 paragraphs in a blank document, the line numbering gives actual line numbers, well beyond 3.

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
User avatar
phspaelti
Posts: 1313
Joined: 2007-02-07 00:58:12
Location: Japan

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by phspaelti »

adryan wrote:If I use (for example) the Lorem Ipsum macro to insert 3 paragraphs in a blank document, the line numbering gives actual line numbers, well beyond 3.
Are you sure you're using the same application as we are? :)
Attachments
Nisus Line Nums.jpg
Nisus Line Nums.jpg (87.41 KiB) Viewed 14827 times
philip
adryan
Posts: 561
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by adryan »

G’day, Philip et al

Well, er, ahem, that is, I’m fairly sure we’re all using the same application. :-)

But there’s obviously something going on here.
Test.rtf
(19.03 KiB) Downloaded 595 times
Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
User avatar
phspaelti
Posts: 1313
Joined: 2007-02-07 00:58:12
Location: Japan

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by phspaelti »

Those certainly look like real line numbers. How do you get them? Can you turn them on/off?

They actually behave in a very interesting way. If I insert a table, each row gets a number. If I add multiple lines inside a cell, the numbers first give numbers for each line. After a short time the numbers are 'corrected' and they go back to showing one number per row.
philip
adryan
Posts: 561
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by adryan »

G'day, Philip et al

New
Macro > Document > Lorem Ipsum
View > Line Numbers > Restart Every Page

To disable line numbering:–

View > Line Numbers > Not Shown This Section

Note that I am using Sierra, not High Sierra, in case that makes a difference.

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
User avatar
phspaelti
Posts: 1313
Joined: 2007-02-07 00:58:12
Location: Japan

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by phspaelti »

adryan wrote:View > Line Numbers > Restart …
Duh! :oops:
I now see what I was doing wrong. In Draft View there are of course no line numbers.

Anyhow, line numbers/paragraph numbers won't number lines/paragraphs inside table rows/cells. One kludgy way to fix that is to add a column to the table that has extra (split) rows:
Table line numbers.png
Table line numbers.png (77.56 KiB) Viewed 14793 times
philip
adryan
Posts: 561
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by adryan »

G'day, Philip et al

I’m glad you sorted that out, Philip.

One small point that might have relevance in some situations is that line numbers can (almost) disappear off the left edge of the page if the Gutter width (available in the Line Numbers Palette) is too large.

As far as Tables are concerned, if one insists on breaking the 37th Law of Word Processing by having Table cell contents occupy more than one line, and yet still wants the luxury of line (as opposed to row) numbers, your idea of a dummy column may well be the best solution. It would be nice to avoid manual counting of the lines in the first place, in order to determine the number of rows required in the dummy column (see below). A quick look at the Macro Language Reference didn’t reveal any obvious way to determine where text within a Table cell will be forced to move to the next line, so I’m none the wiser about a Macro solution.

I considered other approaches, but the disadvantages were too great. For example, one might use Page columns rather than Table columns, but the line numbers then appear adjacent to each column; this approach had other problems as well.

In the end I would probably create a separate Table with one more column (Philip’s dummy column) than the original but with a single row. I’d position this Table alongside the first, so I could compare row and line heights. I’d adjust the height of this row to correspond to the line height of text in the first Table, then add enough rows to suit. Then I’d merge cells where appropriate, it being visually obvious where this needs to be done. Finally, I’d copy and paste from the first Table to the second, delete the first Table, and display the line numbers. It’s all a bit cumbersome, but I guess that’s the price one pays for breaking the law….

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
Vanceone
Posts: 211
Joined: 2013-05-03 07:06:31

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by Vanceone »

Thanks for all the research. So, to sum up: Line numbers will apply to one row of a table. If you have multiple lines of text inside a cell, it won't number them.

So that is not good, actually. See, I'm building a caption for a legal pleading. It's laid out with a two column, one row table, with multiple lines in the row and a divider line in between.

So I have a few choices: create a section with multiple columns; use a floating text box, use a table, or use a prebuilt watermark. Each has drawbacks: Floating text boxes do not get line numbers. Table cells do not number lines inside a cell. Columns do line numbers on both columns. Watermarks (or text boxes simulating a watermark) don't match up precisely with the lines.

Of the various options, I think tables are the best; even though it is, admittedly, a kludge, to use tables for layout (like the bad old HTML days before CSS).

Old school style was to just use tabs (type line 1 then tab over to the second "column", return and repeat) but that is very fragile and not able to adjust to things easily. It may well be the best option though in this case.
Bob Stern
Posts: 170
Joined: 2006-03-12 12:32:47

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by Bob Stern »

@Vanceone:

Do you need line numbers for the blank lines, too, as in California?

If so, see the User Guide topic Number lines for legal documents (“Pleading Pages” or “Pleading Paper”), beginning on page 288.
User avatar
martin
Official Nisus Person
Posts: 5227
Joined: 2002-07-11 17:14:10
Location: San Diego, CA
Contact:

Re: Line numbers and tables.

Post by martin »

Bob Stern wrote:Do you need line numbers for the blank lines, too, as in California?
It sounds like it, for which we provide pleading page templates. However from what Vanceone described, those templates are undesirable because the pleading numbers don't always line up exactly with the lines of text. That's because the templates use floating text boxes or watermarks to show the pleading numbers, which don't adjust as text layout changes. They merely show 1-26 even spaced in the margin, no matter what happens in the main text.

Vanceone seems to want pleading numbers that match up exactly with the lines of main text. Although Nisus Writer has this feature too, it can be difficult to get right as a variety of factors can throw it off. Not only for the reasons discussed here (eg: tables) but also simple formatting changes like adjusting the margins or paragraph spacing can create too few (or too many) pleading numbers.

For these reasons I always personally thought pleading page requirements seemed rather burdensome. But I guess if you have to submit such a document then you just have to figure it out somehow, even if it is terribly finicky.
Post Reply