I realize that most people hate tabs and indents, mainly because they don’t quite understand how they work. You see, tabs and indents always do what you tell them to do! If you have trouble with tabs and indents, it is only because you don’t know what you are telling them! Don’t holler at those poor tabs—they are trying to do what you want; it’s your responsibility to figure out how to tell them what to do. They always work. They are extremely dependable and reliable and logical (yes, logical). So this chapter teaches you how to take advantage of their dependability.
Also check out ch05 about the table feature because some designers prefer to use tables rather than tabs and indents.
Things you should know about tabs and indents
You must first understand how tabs and indents behave.
The Tabs panel is where the tabs and indents are set and displayed, and every paragraph has its own ruler settings.
This is critical. Any tabs or indents you set in the Tabs panel will apply only to the paragraph that is currently selected; that is, tab settings are paragraph-specific, as explained on page ch02sec2lev10.
Open the Tabs panel from the Type menu.
Task 1 Experiment with the Tabs panel and paragraphs
- Create a text frame three or four inches wide and type several lines of text (do not hit a Return at the ends of the lines).
- After a couple of lines, hit a Return (which creates a new paragraph) and type several more lines of text.
- While the insertion point is at the end of the second paragraph, go to the Type menu and choose “tabs,” or if the tabs ruler is already on the screen, click the tiny magnet icon to snap it to the text frame.
Find the triangle at the far right end (that’s the Right Indent marker) and drag it inward (to the left) about an inch.
The right margin in the second paragraph indents an inch inward because that is the paragraph that is selected.
Notice that the first paragraph did not indent its right margin.
Now single-click in the first paragraph to set the insertion point within that paragraph.
In the Tabs panel, you see that the Right Indent marker (the triangle) is back in its original position. That’s because every paragraph has its own settings.
To change the settings of more than one paragraph at once, select all the paragraphs you want to change. (These paragraphs must be contiguous, or connected to each other, to select them.)
The Tabs panel ruler has invisible tab settings every half inch.
As soon as you set your own tab, every default tab setting to the left of that new tab disappears.
Task 2 Experiment with a tab marker
Make sure the Ruler across the top of the screen is showing (from the View menu).
Make sure the Ruler is in inches for now. If it isn’t displaying inches, you can change it: Control-click or right-click on the Ruler; from the menu that appears, choose “Inches.”
- Create a text frame three or four inches wide.
- Hit the Tab key, then type a silly word, such as Dogfood.
If the Tabs panel is open, single-click on its magnet icon to make it snap to the text frame you just made. Or open the Tabs panel (from the Type menu), and it will position itself directly over the text box. The word you typed is aligned with the half-inch mark.
- Single-click in the Tabs panel ruler near the 2-inch mark; the word you typed will instantly jump to that new marker because all the invisible default tab settings to its left have disappeared.
Drag that tab marker left or right and watch the word snap to that new position.
Tabs are cumulative, and they accumulate in the word you type after you hit the Tab key.
Huh? Well, if you hit the Tab key three times and then type the word Rosalind, that word Rosalind holds onto those three tabs. Rosalind will jump over to the third tab she can find (which does not necessarily mean the third tab in the Tabs panel!).
If you then hit two more tabs and type the word Celia, the word Celia holds onto five tabs—the tabs accumulate. And again, Celia will jump to the fifth tab she can find.
I say “the fifth tab she can find” because perhaps Rosalind’s name is too long and exten