Tab stop outside of text wrap?

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Pilcrow
Posts: 5
Joined: 2024-04-24 14:08:30

Tab stop outside of text wrap?

Post by Pilcrow »

How do I get NWP to respect the out-of-text wrap placement of a tab stop? In the below image, I'd like the number 5 to align with the other page numbers at 7.5", while maintaining the right indent of the overall paragraph at 7" (This is so that there is always a minimum amount of space between the page number the table of contents entry.)
Screenshot 2024-06-19 at 17.13.34.png
Screenshot 2024-06-19 at 17.13.34.png (168.89 KiB) Viewed 11177 times

Alternatively, is there some way to set a different wrap for the final line of a paragraph?
adryan
Posts: 603
Joined: 2014-02-08 12:57:03
Location: Australia

Re: Tab stop outside of text wrap?

Post by adryan »

G'day, Pilcrow et al

You can set a Tab to the right of the Right Line Indent, but it won't be respected in text layout. (We are talking about left-to-right text direction, and it would appear to be a bug.)

The only way I can think of achieving what you want is with the use of a Macro that:–
(1) determines the positions of the two (non-tab) characters that immediately precede and follow a Tab
(2) calculates the "distance" between them
(3) if the "distance" is less than a nominated value, inserts a Line Character (U+2028) at the first preceding opportunity (ie, space, hyphen, soft hyphen)
(4) adjusts kerning if text is somehow justified on the right.

Note that the page numbers in your first two list items only appear to be offset somewhat from the rest of the text because you have left-justified the text and the particular words are of such length as to force line breaks where they do. It is quite possible for the text to be such that a page number is vertically aligned with the rest of the text (especially if the text is fully justified) and hence not be immediately obvious, apart from the length of the preceding leader Tab.

I imagine it would be possible to incorporate in the above suggested Macro the possibility of inserting line characters in each line but the final one, so that the page numbers stand well to the right of the text (but still within the text margins). This would be equivalent to having a Last Line Outdent, analogous to the familiar First Line Indent.

But I leave all this as an exercise for the reader.

It would probably be a useful addition to the Macro collection, but a case could be made for adding this Last Line Outdent option (for page numbers, equation references, etc) as a feature in a future version of the software.

Cheers,
Adrian
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021)
macOS Ventura
Nisus Writer user since 1996
Pilcrow
Posts: 5
Joined: 2024-04-24 14:08:30

Re: Tab stop outside of text wrap?

Post by Pilcrow »

Thanks Adryan.

One clarification because I realize that my use of "minimum" is ambiguous: I want there to be more space between the page numbers and any of the other text—about half an inch where the only thing is the …… of the tab leader. That is, I would want the words "provides or" in the first entry to be wrapped to the next line as well. (I think this makes tables like this table of contents far more readable/scannable than where the page number can be lost underneath a paragraph of text above it.)

Regardless, I appreciate the explanation. And while this has worked in Word for the last decade plus, I just tried to do the same thing in Pages and TextEdit and have found that, like NWP, they do not allow for using tab stops beyond the regular word-wrap. Ultimately, I think that makes the most logical sense, which suggests that a new feature ("land line outdent" or similar) would be the better way to implement this. (Though I wonder if that even makes sense without there being some sort of tab stop at the end of a paragraph.)

In any event, thanks.
Vanceone
Posts: 213
Joined: 2013-05-03 07:06:31

Re: Tab stop outside of text wrap?

Post by Vanceone »

If you are not afraid of doing what I call "Caveman formatting" this is easily achieved. By caveman formatting I mean manually formatting the table of contents entry. Usually I do these kinds of things as one of the last jobs in my final formatting pass over the document prior to publishing.

In short, if you enter a "soft return" in your paragraph where you want the line to split, it will break the paragraph and push the text down to the next line without inserting a new ToC entry. A soft return is entered by Option-Return. So in your first entry, if you place your cursor before the word "provides" on that first line and hold down the option key and hit the return key, it will break the line right there, leaving your desired space.

In item "C" you can leave your text wrap at the default, and just option-return after ORS and so on. Again, it's a bit of a hack as it involves manual formatting the table of contents entry, but it works.

Since it looks like you are writing a legal brief, let me point out that this same soft return technique works wonders for a Table of Authorities entry to break the line in a sane place instead of right in the middle of a part of the citation.
Pilcrow
Posts: 5
Joined: 2024-04-24 14:08:30

Re: Tab stop outside of text wrap?

Post by Pilcrow »

Thanks. I'm aware that I can add the line breaks manually. I was just hoping to avoid it.
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