Rules under columns of numbers in financials?

Question

I am laying out columns of numbers in a financial section of a report...the columns are created with tabs. how do I make rules underneath each individual column. Underlining won't do it...I need to be able to control color, offset, etc. When I use paragraph rules, it makes a rule under the whole group of columns, not under each individual column.

Answer 1

I have done a lot of financial statements. Used to work in-house in an investment company. Tables are not an option unless you're doing something very minor: generally text needs to flow from column to column, and from page to page. It is possible that a single portfolio could run on for 10 pages. The other problem is that a typical layout can have several styles of ruling depending upon which row they're associated with: single rule under the left column; single rule under left two columns; double rule under the middle column; double rule under the right column. This makes regular paragraph ruling useless.
The best way I've found to handle this is to make your own custom rules with stroke styles (in the flyout of the stroke palette). Essentially, you make dashed rules that correspond to each different situation and apply them as paragraph rules in the appropriate style sheet. The gaps will be the columns without ruling and spaces between columns; the dashes will be the rules under the appropriate columns. Set up both single and double rules this way. (The rule weight of double rules includes both rules: if you want two half-point rules with a half point gap, you use a one-and-a-half point rule. Thick-thick is based on 33.3%,33.3%,33.3%, but the weights and spacing are as customizable as the dashes.)
With some planning you may be able to cut down on the number of strokes sytles you have to define. Generally the left column is text, the rightmost columns are figures, and only figure columns will ever have rules beneath them. A little tip is to use the paragraph rule indent to set the postion of the first dash. If you have equal columns you may be able to use one custom dash in different situations. For instance, you can use your three dash rule for just the last two columns by increasing the left indent. Increase it more and it's only applied to the last column. These indents can be defined in your paragraph styles.