Paragraph indenting question

Is it possible to make the indentation of paragraph be
relative to the indentation of the previous paragraph?
We are authoring our content in Structured FrameMaker and are
mapping the FM styles to Robohelp styles. In FM, we have an
element/paragraph tag called BodyIndented that has context rules to
define how far it is indented depending on where it appears in the
structure. For example, when a BodyIndented paragraph followes a
numbered step, it indents .5 inch ... but when it follows a
bulleted item, it indents .75 inch.
In WebWorks, you could set up the indentation to be relative
based on the level assigned to a style.
Can you do something similar with Robohelp styles? We would
like to do this to automate as much of the online help generation
as possible. There is a potential for it to become very time
consuming to manually indent paragraphs.
Any help would be greatly appreaciated.

You might want to look into CSS Direct Child Selectors. That
is:
OL > LI > BodyIndented {
[your style stuff when that exact sequence appears: text
below a numbered list item]
UL > LI > BodyIndented {
[your style stuff when that exact sequence appears: text
below a bulleted list item]
You could even tailor a specific class of list for this
special treatment, such as
OL.STEPS > LI > BodyIndented {
[your style stuff when that exact sequence appears: text
below a numbered list item in a STEPS class]
You would then, in the text, call <OL
class="STEPS"><LI>blah, blah, blah...
Good luck,
Leon

Similar Messages

Paragraph Indents vs Tab Settings

Trying to format a book length document using paragraph styles. So far, so good.
I've made separate styles for 'chapter body text - first paragraph,' and 'chapter body text.'
I'd like regular 'chapter body text' to be indented by, say, 0.25".
Question is, do I use Paragraph Indents or Tab Settings to achieve this?
Paragraph Indents seems to work, but I don't really know what Tab Settings are, and haven't been able to determine their behaviour by experiment.
thanks,

Hi SSS,
Your paragraph indent is the way to go! Keep with it.
Tabs: You might find View > Show Rulers helpful. To add a tab stop, click on the ruler. In this screenshot, there is a tab stop (blue right pointing triangle) at 1 cm in from the left indent (blue down arrow) on the ruler.
The Tab stop will align a Tab character typed from the keyboard. You can have several tabs stops per line.
Another way to add a tab stop:
Inspector > Text > Tabs > Tab Stops and click on the + button. The screenshot shows there is a left tab stop at 1 cm. You can double click to edit the position, or drag the Tab Stop on the ruler.
Page 94 of the Pages'09 User Guide: Setting Tab Stops to Align Text.
Download the Guide from the Help Menu in Pages.
Regards,
Ian

Change Paragraph Indentation Before Text via macro

I have a repetitive task where I need to format a paragraph 100s of places throughout my slide decks. I need to remove the bullet, change the font, and set the paragraph indentation before text property to 0.5"
I can do everything but set the indentation before text property. can someone please show me the line of code needed for this?
Thanks.

Hello moondaddy.
I suggest you to ask this question in the
Office Answers Forum.
Bye.
Luigi Bruno
MCP, MCTS, MOS, MTA

Formatting first-paragraph indent in Pages for iPad

I've read the instructions in Pages for iPad's help, which instructs users to highlight a paragraph or paragraphs and then drag the first-line indentation symbol to the desired indent. However, I'm unable to get the first-line indent symbol to move independently of the left paragraph margin symbol. I must be missing something. Is there a source that explains these procedures in greater detail? I would also like to be able to set up a template with this paragraph indentation, but obviously need to figure out how to indent first.

Leigh Hanlon wrote:
James,
Thanks for the suggestion to use a stylus. I just tried that and you're right that it *sometimes* works, maybe about 25 percent of the time in the past few minutes I've been experimenting with the technique. My problem is that I need to indent precisely for documents that will be saved as Word .docx files. I can't believe that Pages for iPad apparently relegates this important feature solely by sliding and not allowing us to open a window and set the indents numerically.
If it's any consolation, Word for iPad seems just as bad. :-)
Leigh
Since Word for iPad requires an Office 365 subscription, I would say worse .
Honestly, it take a little practice. another option might be to start with a different template that includes paragraph indentions. A couple of the built-in templates do, and there are other savailable in the app store.

Paragraph Indents

Peggy...Thanks for comment. Sorry I didn't articulate re paragraph indents. Use Pages '08 and have used Pages Newsletter Template "Johnson Family Newsletter" since day one with v '05 for 4-page doc. Layout is .5 and It has two borders. Outside border looks like 2 pt and inside text border looks like 1 pt.
Duplex print monthly Newsletter with HP color LaserJet on 11x17 paper which is folded. First page is one column and pages 2-4 are three columns. Outside text in columns one and three on left and right sides of three-column pages butts up to vertical text pane border. Unable to back it off one or two spaces either with Inspector or tab stops.
All three paragraph indents are preset at 0.25. I need to change values. How do I eliminate preset values? When I set in values like 0.02, that increases the preset value to 0.27. Changing default settings or Tab Stops hasn't worked. Following Help and User Manual hasn't worked.
Vaguely recall controlling paragraph indent settings with '05 which worked but bomb out with '08. Reinstalled v '06 to compare but it has same problem. The problem is not the program's but the user. Obviously I'm doing something wrong but don't know what. Thanks. Ol' Jim.

Hello
Here is what I uses:
For lines 1 and 2 the two values where 1cm
for lines 3 and 4 they are set to 0 and 0.5cm
for line 5, as you may read on the screenshot they are set to 0.5 and 0.5cm.
Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 6 mars 2008 19:19:49)

Paragraph Indents relative to spine

Just like all things Adobe, InDesign has several half-features that aren't done yet.
It's great that anchored objects and paragraph alignment can be set relative to spine, but what's missing is paragraph indents relative to spine. Instead of Left/Right let us choose Spine/Loose (non-spine?).

Seems like a pretty good idea to me. Have you filed a formal request? Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Keystroke for creating a paragraph indent?

I remember being able to do a simple keystroke to get a paragraph indent - for quickly making lists and indented lists.
Can't remember it today, when I need it. Can't seem to find it easily in the manual.
All ears,
Ben

Hi Peter,
I'm in Pages 09. If I do a command (and), I'm assuming you mean + for 'and'. Nothing much seems to happen. No indent.
I know I can create indents in the Inspector, but it's too slow, and I'm taking notes as someone is talking ... need to be super fast.

Should I have spaces between paragraphs or paragraph indents?

I am creating a pdf interactive document/ebook, and am wondering whether to use a space between paragraphs or use indents. Is there a standard?

dopfel wrote:
Scott Falkner wrote:
It is entirely up to you. Use one or the other, but not both. If you are using paragraph Styles it is easy to make a global change and see which reads better. Generally, I prefer spaces to indents. The space should be either one line of lead (i.e. equal to the paragraph’s leading value) or half a line of lead if one full line looks to large.
My reply is in reference to the above quote regarding how to make a
global change so that all of the paragraphs in the document have spaces between them w/o having to select each and every paragraph and applying the 'paragraphspacing' style.
How do I go about this ?
Format a paragraph as you want all similar paragraphs to look. Now go to the Paragraph Styles panel and create a new Style. Right-click on the new style to edit the style and give it an intuitive name. Now you can format any text the same way by first selecting the text, then clicking on the style in the Paragraph Styles panel. If you later want to change all of the paragraphs using that style, just right-click on the style and change any attributes to globally change all paragraphs in the document using that style.
secondary: not certain the below applies to my question regarding spaces between paragraphs and changing them globally.
i have also found and wondered about using the setting for the 'align to grid' where default is none and options are
'all lines' or 'first line only'. Does this apply in any way to a regular layout of a 'novel' ?
i do not know what this refers to.
The space should be either one line of lead (i.e. equal to the paragraph’s leading value) or half a line of lead if one full line looks to large.
thanks again.
Leading is the term for the space from the baseline of one line of text to the baseline of the next line within a paragraph. The default is “Auto”, which is 120% of the point size. For 12 point text, Auto equals 14.4 point leading. First: Don’t use Auto leading. Change the leading of your style to a number. About 120% is as good a place to start as any, but it depends on the typeface. You may decide to use 11 point text on 14 point leading.
Because you will have columnd of text next to each other on the page, or pages of text neext to each other on a two-page spread, you want to make sure your text lines up neatly in columns or pages (although for pages it is less critical). The easiest way to do this is to use paragraph spacing equal to your leading, i.e. 14 points. This way, no matter how many paragraphs (and thus, blank lines between paragraphs) you have, the text will always have a heigh that is multiples of 14 points, so bottom baselines will always line up.
You may decide that looks like too much space, and want to use a lower value. The next best value is half the leading, or 7 points. That way, about half of the time your columns or pages will line up and the bottom baselines will sync.
Once again, it is ultimately up to you how you want the text to look and how you want your pages or column to look next to each other. If 14 (or whatever your leading is) looks too small or 7 (or whatever half the leading is) looks too big, then go with what looks best. Always try to keep an eye on the big picture, though. Don’t just look at one line of text, look at the entire paragraph. Don’t just look at one paragraph, look at the column. Don’t just look at one column, look at the page. Don’t just look at one page, look at the spread. And always keep the reader in mind. You are designing the document for the reader, not for yourself.

How can I import text from Word including paragraph indents?

I'm using Captivate 7.
I need to import text from a series of documents written in Microsoft Word.
When I copy and paste most of the formatting is retained. Bold, italics and underline import perfectly but I lose the indented paragraphs. They all become left aligned.
Is there a way to import the indented first lines in the paragraphs?
Thanks in advance.

Lilybiri, sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Life sometimes interferes with living.
Thanks for sharing your opinions. Your deep and penetrating insights have changed my life forever. As in: "...that people expect ..." Gee; I've pondered that for years. Now that you've opened my eyes to "what people expect" I can let that go and concentrate on something else. Like, is cheese REALLY binding?
With your helpful and concerned attitude I'm sure you'll be glad to know that my problem has been solved. Not by anything from Adobe; the company or the forum, but by simply finding another program that works as it should.
By the way, I marked my own answer correct as it was clear that there is no answer and I just wanted to close the thread. Actually, after I reread what I said, I realized my answer IS correct. So, I'll stand by it.
Thanks again, it's been interesting.
So long Lilybiri, and good-bye Adobe Captivate.

Proportional Paragraph Indents

Hi,
Does anyone know if it's possible to get ID to use proportional indents (e.g. in ems / percentages) instead of fixed-width indents in paragraph styles? I have a master style on which other styles are based, and when I change this master style's font size, I'd like the other indented styles to follow proportionally. Ditto for the leading, ideally.
In the absence of that option, has anyone used a similar technique? I guess I could script something but am getting a bit tired of writing new scripts for useful features...
Cheers,
Alex

OK, you've set me on the right track with auto-leading. I did have something of an aversion to it, but I've just found that a style can have a default auto-leading percentage (default = 120% which you may not like), which can be overridden. That's perfect.
As for beginning each paragraph with an em space, I guess that would do the job, but I don't really like introducing textual mark-up into documents unless it's really necessary, I think I'd rather override the spacing when necessary.

Pages 09 default paragraph indent?

My file keeps reverting to no first line indent. I tried selecting all, setting a first line indent, ensuring the "detect lists" box in Preferences was checked and it worked for a while. However, after one case of two paragraph returns in a row, it reverts to no first indent. I have a long document to type and there is no way this scene is tenable. I'm gonna try a new document and paste. However, knowing why this occurs and fixing it in the file is preferable.
Also, the new Pages 5.X is not feasable (until numerous features are added back in) for this project. Thanks.

Styles are not universal for very good reasons. You would not want a change in Body Text to then change the Body Text in another document. You would be chasing your tail with constant changes.
Styles are part of the document and are shown and updated in the Styles Drawer.
Menu > View > Show Styles Drawer
The Styles Drawer highlights the style of the text the cursor is in. If the text has been changed from the formatting of the Style, a small red arrow shows to the right of the style name. Click on that and you can update it or create a new Style with the current formatting.
Peter

Paragraph indenting issue

I have a text frame where I would like to indent every line after the first - I am numbering my paragraphs and I don't like the look of the text wrap in the vertical space where the numbers are. Anyone know how to deal with this?

Do you mean you like all line to be indented or all line exept first line? You have to give proper left indent and first line indent values to your text...
in upper picture I have used a negative value for first line, and same value as positive for left indent. That way first line hangs outside of indent.
in lower picture theres only left indent given and all lines have been indent.
You will find those indent fields in Control panel if you activate paragraph formatting, or from Paragraph panel (Type>Paragraph)

How to create traditional paragraph indenting?

Is there any simple way to indent a block of text using the traditional method of a few spaces at the start of the first line? All the indent tags and methods I've found will indent blocks of text, but not just the first line. I don't care if it's an HTML tag or CSS tag, a keyboard macro to insrt 4 or 5 NBSP would solve the problem just fine, but I can't figure out how (or if) DreamWeaver supports keyboard macros. Sorry if this is a really dumb question, but one of the user's I support wants to be able to do this.

Yes you can do that with CSS:
Example:
<p style="text-indent:20px;">This is a pratajlfds fasdfj asdsalkd jfsadkfj skdjf kdsjfksdjfks daskjfd lsadkjf kdslfj aslkdf jslkdjf alksjfdlksad jfkjds flkjdsflk aslkfd jldsa kjflasjd fljdsflsdjflkds jljdsfsajdfjdk alkdsflaksd lasjfdjsaf dfjkd klakdjf dsk jkd lksadjf asdf lakfdldsajflasdjflasjdfdjkfdfj ddfjdsk fkds ds falsdjfla</p>
I have used an inline style but you can create a style in <Head> or external css.
Regards,
Vinay

Book | paragraph composition question

I'm an amateur, so forgive this question if it's very basic. I'm putting together a long book in InDesign and am having a hard time with paragraph composition. In typical book layouts, text always appears aligned (each column of text starts and ends at the same point on the page as the next column). This seems to be achieved without irregular leading or visibly noticeable gaps in tracking or kerning. I'm trying to figure out how this happens. How do I adjust the composition of my text so it fits flush against the top and bottom of a text frame and looks neatly aligned from column to column and overall visually clean? I hope I'm explaining this well.
This is the kind of clean layout I'd like to achieve:
vs what I've currently got (notice irregular gaps between paragraphs and how third column is not aligned at the bottom with the other colums...etc):

Note that the Baseline grid feature only works on a line by line basis -- it rounds your leading up to the next baseline.
How do I adjust the composition of my text so it fits flush against the top and bottom of a text frame [?]
Align to Baseline will not automatically do that for you -- if you have blank lines between your paragraphs, or you are keeping the first and last 2 lines per paragraph together using Keep options, the bottom of your pages may still look "ragged".
You can't always avoid this, because you might have a heading with two blank lines above and one below, which ought to be kept together with at least the first 2 lines of its following paragraph. That needs 6 lines of text -- if you only have 5 lines left at the bottom of a frame, the entire block will jump to the next page.
However, using a few tricks you might be able to avoid some of the 'missing lines' at the bottom of your pages.
If you look at your original spread, you see that the left page, left column ends with a single first line of the next paragraph. Technically, you ought to avoid that (it's called a 'widow'), using the Keep options in your paragraph style. However, for a two-column book you might want to relax this rule. On the other hand, you don't want at any time the last line of a paragraph at the top of a new column. That's plain ugly, because it might be a single word plus a period.
You can adjust the text per page to prevent these, as well as the blank line at the bottom of the right page, left column, by minimally tweaking the text spacing. For example, to get rid of that 3rd column blank line at the bottom, you can adjust the tracking for a paragraph that either has a very short last line (the middle paragraph of the 2nd column), to gain one line, or for a paragraph with a very long last line (the middle paragraph of the 3rd column) to lose one line.
I always choose the longest paragraph with either a long or a short last line, so the necessary change will be as small as possible. I also look back a few pages before trying, because if you cannot win something on this page, you might be able to do so on a previous page. After I change it, I always look forward a few pages, because sometimes it may make things worse for several consecutive pages. In that case it's better not trying to fix it.
As for what to change: you are 100% spot on when observing
[t]his seems to be achieved without irregular leading or visibly noticeable gaps in tracking or kerning ..
because if it is visible, you won't have achieved your goal. Your taste might differ, but I am partial to changing the tracking only, and never (well... hardly ever) beyond -10 (to gain) or +10 (to loosen up). And these are extreme values; if I only can gain one single line in a not too bad spot by applying -10 to a paragraph in the middle of otherwise perfectly spaced paragraphs, I don't do it.
(The hard part comes when you have to edit the text after all your hard labour. Click into paragraphs that look 'suspicious' and check if you have tinkered with them. It might not be necessary anymore! So remove the tinkering.)

Set custom paragraph indents..etc....?

Hello,
I like to have 0.05 indents on left / right in all my text fields. Other than copy / pasting every single one, is there a way to set it (LCD ES 8.2) up so that the paragraph section will always be the way I want it to be?
If so, are there other time-saving hints that might not be obvious to us?
Thanks a million!
Marla

Hi Maria,
Once you have set up the textfield as to how you want it, drag it BACK into the Object library and it will be will be there available to you like a regular object. You may want to set up a custom tab and give it a specific name.
Slán,
Niall

Paragraph indenting question

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for