by Barbara Binder
Why are people afraid of setting tabs? Since 1988, I've taught Word, PageMaker, Ventura Publisher, InDesign and FrameMaker classes, and most of my students walk in the door afraid of tabs. It's one of life's mysteries, and so I always try to set aside some time to address it in class. Here's your motivation to keep reading: once you master tabs in one program, you use the same logic in all the others.
The first trick to mastering tabs is to stop relying on the default tabs every half inch. FrameMaker makes that easy, by not offering you default tabs for the Body format. The second trick is to add just one tab between columns (not 2 tabs, or tab space tab, or any other combination). Let's give it a shot:
That wasn't so bad was, it? But, all of the columns are left-aligned. I'd like to change their alignments to match this:
Tune in next week for modifying tabs.
If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class. Too elementary for your skill level? How about the Advanced FrameMaker 9 class? Hope to "see" you there.
Why are people afraid of setting tabs? Since 1988, I've taught Word, PageMaker, Ventura Publisher, InDesign and FrameMaker classes, and most of my students walk in the door afraid of tabs. It's one of life's mysteries, and so I always try to set aside some time to address it in class. Here's your motivation to keep reading: once you master tabs in one program, you use the same logic in all the others.
The first trick to mastering tabs is to stop relying on the default tabs every half inch. FrameMaker makes that easy, by not offering you default tabs for the Body format. The second trick is to add just one tab between columns (not 2 tabs, or tab space tab, or any other combination). Let's give it a shot:
- Create a new, portrait FrameMaker document.
- Make sure that your text symbols are showing by looking for a checkmark in front of View > Text Symbols. If not, click on Text Symbols to activate the command.
- Type Pierre on the first line, and press the tab key once.
Hey! The cursor didn't go anywhere. That would be because there are no default tabs in the Body format.
- Click your mouse just under the 2.5 inch mark on the vertical ruler. That little arrow that just appeared? That's your first tab. Notice how your cursor jumped to that position.
- Type Thursday and press the tab key again.
Again, no cursor movement, so go ahead and click under both the 4 and the 5 inch marks.
- Type in 9.5, press the tab key once, and type France.
- Press Enter and complete the table as shown below:
- When you finish typing, click the Update All button in the Paragraph Designer to update the Body format, and Remove Overrides. (In a real project, I'd make a new format for the table, but we are just trying to figure this out, so we'll use Body here.)
That wasn't so bad was, it? But, all of the columns are left-aligned. I'd like to change their alignments to match this:
Tune in next week for modifying tabs.
***
If you are new to FrameMaker and want to get up to speed quickly, join IconLogic's instructor-led, online Introduction to Adobe FrameMaker 9 class. Too elementary for your skill level? How about the Advanced FrameMaker 9 class? Hope to "see" you there.
***
About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.
I'm afraid of setting tabs because each time I click on "Right" in the tab entry box, the Paragraph Designer disappears. I click "Continue", but the Paragraph Designer is not displayed. When I click on PD again, it's forgotten about my tab stop. Repeat as needed.
Posted by: Dawn Friedman | March 09, 2010 at 01:18 PM