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Hi All,

Pretty sure there is a bug—or a very strange feature!—when using the Increase/Decrease Hanging Indent command (Format > Paragraph Indents).

Here is what I've discovered so far: if you have a ruler with the tabs set greater than 1/4", and have a paragraph that has a tab at the beginning (see the Example text file), then when you use Increase or Decrease Hanging Indent, both the First Line Indent and the Hanging Indent will move 1/4" regardless of whether you have a tab set there or not until they 'catch' on the next tab you have set. The circumstance in which this happens is not as unusual as it sounds if you use the list feature to construct outlines or texts of numbered paragraphs, etc.

Josh

Hi Josh- this is actually a feature. The idea is that in most lists you want a nice consistent (left) edge for your text, both for the first line and any wrapped text. Visually, you can see this edge at the 2.5 inch mark in this screenshot: To that end, the hanging indent is used as the position for text following a list item/bullet. Thus when you increase the hanging indent, the first line moves inward as well.

If you want to override this behavior, you can add a ruler tab stop between the two indent markers. For example, here's what happens if you insert a tab at 2.25 inches: I hope that makes some sense.

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the quick and thorough reply, as usual! That certainly makes sense, although I disagree with the behaviour in this case. Maybe it comes down to a difference in philosophy.

My view is that if I have over-ridden the default tabs, it is because I want the tabs in one particular place and not another (for whatever reason), and I want things to line up one way and not another. Therefore when I use the Increase/Decrease Hanging Tab (or First Line Tab), I want it to follow my intentions (the tabs that I placed) and not what the programmers guess I might want to do!

In any case, now that I know it is a feature and what the feature is for, I can work around it.

Thanks,
Josh