Introduction
Tabs
Indents
Paragraph Spacing
Paragraph Type
Alignment
Auto Hyphenation

Introduction

A paragraph is a range of text followed by a paragraph return. The appearance of a paragraph is dependent on its paragraph attributes. The most common paragraph attributes are indents, tabs, alignment and leading.

PageStream does not force you to apply paragraph attributes to paragraphs only; you can apply different paragraph attributes to ranges of characters within a paragraph.

Some paragraph attributes take effect only when applied to the first character in a paragraph. To avoid confusion, apply paragraph attributes to entire paragraphs. (Triple click in a paragraph to select it.)

To change paragraph attributes for selected paragraphs: Select the paragraphs to change with the Text tool. Choose the appropriate Type menu command or select its equivalent from the Paragraph view of the Edit palette.

If you want to apply paragraph attributes to separate paragraphs, you should consider using paragraph styles to save time.

To change the attributes for all text formatted with a paragraph style: Hold down Shift while choosing a style from the Paragraph Styles submenu in the Type menu to display the Paragraph Style dialog box. Modify the attributes and click OK. All text formatted with that style will change automatically.

MacOS Users: Hold down Shift prior to pressing the mouse button.

Paragraph attributes

• Tabs: Choose to set, move and delete tab stops.
• Paragraph Format: Choose to set various paragraph formatting options.
• Indents: Set the left edge, right edge and first line indent of a paragraph from the edges of the column.
• Paragraph Spacing: Set the amount of space before and after the paragraph.
• Paragraph Type: Select to start the paragraph with a bullet character or drop cap.
• Alignment: Choose whether the paragraph is flush left, flush right, centered or justified.
• Set Hyphenation: Select to customize Auto Hyphenation options.
• Auto Hyphenation: Select to hyphenate the paragraph.

Tabs

PageStream allows you to indent text to the next available tab stop by pressing the Tab key. You can set the position and alignment for each tab stop you create. PageStream can align text on its decimal place, comma or any other printing character.

PageStream can also fill the space between the tab stop and the character before it. This is referred to as a dot leader or filled tab, and is commonly used for menus and tables of contents. This is the easiest way to align rows of dots.

To set a tab stop: Choose Tabs from the Type menu to display the Tabs dialog box. Click on the ruler itself to add a tab stop. Select the alignment for the new tab from the Type pop-up menu. Enter the fill character, if desired.

To change a tab stop: Select an existing tab stop by clicking directly on it in the area below the ruler. When the tab is selected, its marker will be black instead of grey. Set the Type, Fill and Position values as desired. Special characters can be easily entered for fill and align on character by clicking the respective Browse buttons. You can also drag a selected tab stop to a new position or delete it by clicking Remove.

The Browse Button

If there are no tab stops to the right of the insertion point when you press the Tab key, PageStream will indent the text to the next default tab stop. If you set a tab stop, the default tab stops to its left will be ignored so that your text will be correctly tabbed to it, but the default tab stops to its right will remain. The default tab spacing of 0.333" can be changed with the Tabs dialog box.

To insert a right indent tab: Right indent tabs align text following the tab to the right margin. They are not set with the Tabs dialog box. Hold down Shift while pressing the Tab key to insert a right indent tab.

Because right indent tabs are not real tabs because their position varies according to the right border of the text frame, you cannot fill them with a character like the ordinary tabs. If you want to do so, you will have to use the Tabs dialog box.

Indents

Indents move paragraphs inward from the left and right edges of a text column. You can indent the left and/or right edges of an entire paragraph and indent the first line in the paragraph.

To set indents: Choose Paragraph Format from the Type menu to display the Paragraph Format dialog box, or use the Paragraph view of the Edit palette. Enter the first, left and right indents.

To increase or decrease the left indent: Click the Increase Indent button in the toolbar to increase the left indent to the next tab stop, or click Decrease Indent to decrease the left indent to the previous tab stop.

To create a hanging indent: Click the Hanging Indent button in the toolbar to increase the left indent to the next tab stop. The first line indent will be set to the difference between the next tab stop and the one before it. Use the Hanging Indent button in conjunction with the Increase Indent button to nest hanging indents.

To indent text to the insertion point: Press Ctrl / to left indent text following the insertion point to the insertion point's position. This creates a hanging indent that will change if you add or remove text before the Indent Here control.

Paragraph Spacing

You can change the amount of space above and below paragraphs. Instead of pressing Return a second time after ending a paragraph to insert a blank line, you can specify the exact amount of space you want before and after paragraphs.

If you choose to add space before paragraphs, PageStream will add the space before all paragraphs except the first paragraph in a text frame or column. If you choose to add space before and after paragraphs, PageStream will combine the values to set the total space between paragraphs.

To set paragraph spacing: Choose Paragraph Format from the Type menu to display the Paragraph Format dialog box, or use the Paragraph view of the Edit palette. Choose Relative from the Before or After pop-up menus to express spacing as a percentage of the paragraph's first line's type size. Choose Fixed to express spacing as a fixed amount. Enter the spacing value into the text boxes.

If a paragraph is completely at the top of a text frame, PageStream will not apply paragraph spacing before that paragraph.

Paragraph Type

You can change the paragraph type to bulleted to have PageStream automatically insert a bullet at the beginning of a paragraph, and you can change the paragraph type to drop cap to have PageStream automatically insert a drop cap at the beginning of a paragraph. Both of these features can be configured.

To make a paragraph bulleted: Choose Paragraph Format from the Type menu to display the Paragraph Format dialog box. Select Bulleted from the Type pop-up menu. Choose a font from the Font pop-up menu and enter a character into the Character text box. Special characters can be easily entered by clicking on the Browse button. Click OK.

The Browse Button

To set a drop cap for a paragraph: Choose Paragraph Format from the Type menu to display the Paragraph Format dialog box. Select Drop Cap from the Type pop-up menu. Choose a font from the Font pop-up menu, enter the number of characters to be made into the drop cap (normally a drop cap is a single character) and the number of lines tall it should be. Click OK. PageStream will flow the text around the new drop cap.

To make a hanging indent with a bullet: At this time, this can only be done manually because PageStream's bulleted paragraph feature does not allow you to set a hanging indent. However, hanging indents with a bullet are easy to create. The amount of indent to use depends on the size of the bullet character. Set the Left indent and the first tab stop to be same positive value, and the Right indent to the negative of the Left indent. You can also click on the Hanging Indent toolbar button to quickly set up a hanging indent of the default tab spacing.

The Hanging Indent Toolbar Button

Alignment

You can align a paragraph so that the left margin is straight and the right margin is ragged or vice versa. You can also center a paragraph so that both margins are ragged and the text is centered in the column, or justify a paragraph so that both margins are straight.

When a paragraph is justified, word and character spacing are changed so that the text is set evenly from left to right. The last line of a justified paragraph will always be aligned with the left margin, unless you set Last Line Flush Zone in the Tracking menu to a greater value than the space between the right margin and the end of the last line. In that case, the paragraph will be force justified.

To set alignment: Choose Left, Right, Centered or Justified from the Alignment submenu in the Type menu, or select the alignment from the Alignment pop-up menu in the Paragraph Format dialog box.

Auto Hyphenation

Automatic hyphenation divides words between syllables at the end of a line to avoid short lines. When a word does not fit on a line and automatic hyphenation is selected, a combination of hyphenation algorithms, rules and exceptions will be used to determine whether the word should be hyphenated.

The hyphenation algorithms vary between languages. You can set the hyphenation rules, including the minimum word length to hyphenate, and add exceptions to the hyphenation algorithms to the dictionary.

To automatically hyphenate text: Select Auto Hyphenation from the Hyphenation submenu in the Type menu.

To modify the hyphenation rules: Choose Set Hyphenation from the Hyphenation submenu in the Type menu to display the Auto Hyphenation dialog box. Set the smallest word to hyphenate, the minimum characters before and after a hyphen, the maximum lines which can be hyphenated in a row and the hyphenation zone. You can also limit hyphenation to lowercase words only.

To change hyphenation for every occurrence of a word: Choose Hyphenation from the Define submenu of the Edit menu to display the Edit Hyphenation dialog box. Enter the word to hyphenate into the text box. Click Find to see if the word is already in the hyphenation exceptions file, or click Break to test the hyphenation algorithms. Hyphenation break points are shown by tildes (~). Enter one tilde at each desired break point. Click Add to add the word to the hyphenation dictionary. Click Done to close the dialog box.

To hyphenate one occurrence of a word: Place the insertion point between the letters at which to break the word. Type Control - (hyphen key).

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