ds past the fourth tab in the ruler; in that case, Celia doesn’t count that tab—she only counts two more beyond Rosalind, the two she can find.
This is probably the most crazy-making thing about tabs, so spend a couple of minutes to understand it and control it.
Task 3 Experiment with accumulating tabs
- Create a text frame four to six inches wide.
Follow these directions precisely (that is, do not type more than one tab between words).
Hit the Tab key once.
Type Cat, then hit the Tab key once.
Type Dog, then hit the Tab key once.
Type Rhinoceros, then hit the Tab key once.
Type Ape, then hit the Tab key once.
Hit the Enter key to create a new paragraph.
Hit the Tab key once.
Type Rat, then hit the Tab key once.
Type Bird, then hit the Tab key once.
Type Shrew, then hit the Tab key once.
Type Monkey (even if it doesn’t line up!), then hit the Tab key once.
3 To see the tab markers, go to the Type menu and choose “Show Hidden Characters.” You will see one tab marker before each word.
Here’s the critical thing to notice in the example:
Cat went to the first tab it could find, at ½ inch.
Dog went to the second tab it could find, at 1 inch.
Rhinoceros went to the third tab it could find, at 1.5 inches.
Ape went to the fourth tab it could find. Now, the fourth (default and invisible) tab in the Tabs panel ruler is at 2 inches, but Ape couldn’t get to that one because Rhinoceros is in the way. Thus it had to go to the next one it could find.
In the second paragraph, all four words are able to line up at the half-inch default tab markers.
To make all four columns align so you can carry on with your lists, all you need to do is create new tab markers that replace the defaults, giving the words room enough. Follow the steps below.
- Select both paragraphs: With the Text tool, press-and-drag to select the text in both lines, or press Command A (PC: Control A). You don’t have to select every word in both lines, just a few letters in each.
Make sure the left-aligned tab marker is selected, as circled below.
Single-click in the Tabs panel ruler where you want the tab to be. For instance, put the first tab at ½ inch. Nothing will change.
Put the second tab at about 1.25 inches. The words that have accumulated two tabs, Dog and Bird, will move to that new second tab.
Put the third tab at about 2 inches. Put the fourth tab at about 3 inches. All of the words will instantly align with the tab they are looking for. They will go exactly where you tell them.
Notice that as you manually set a tab marker, the default and invisible markers every half-inch to the left disappear (they remain every half-inch to the right of the last manual tab marker). You can tell they are no longer in place because tabbed text doesn’t stop there.
Continue to experiment: Select both paragraphs, and drag the tab markers left and right; watch everything follow along. Hit Enter and type another line of four animals; adjust the tabs if necessary.
- You can remove extra tabs in the text just as if the tabs were characters.
One reason why tabs can be so confusing is that not only are the default tab markers in the ruler invisible, but the characters in the text are invisible. As you saw in Step 3, you can “Show Hidden Characters” to see them.
Even when you cannot see the actual tab characters, you can remove them just as if they were letters. If you had typed three periods in front of the words “James Clifton,” you know how to delete those periods. In exactly the same way, you can delete tab characters.
Task 4 Delete tabs from the text
- Create a text frame about four or five inches wide.
- Hit the Tab key three times, then type James Clifton. Hit the Tab key two more times, then type Ryan Nigel.
Click to set the insertion point in front of James Clifton. Drag a wee bit to the left, just enough to select the chunk of tab. You will notice that you cannot select only a portion of that tab character—it’s all or nothing.
- Hit the Delete key. Watch how James Clifton now goes to the second tab he can find. When you delete one tab from James, notice that Ryan also has one l