AC9 - Can I set a right, centered or decimal tab?

[Anonymous]

In a text box, shouldn't I be able to align my text to the left, center, right of a tab? Or centered on a decimal? I deal with numbers here?

I didn't see it in the interface, nor in the on-line docs.

Can someone tell me its possible?

Thanks...

[Anonymous]

Hi Robert,

In a text box, shouldn't I be able to align my text to the left, center, right of a tab? Or centered on a decimal? I deal with numbers here?

I didn't see it in the interface, nor in the on-line docs.

As soon as you start typing with the text tool in 9 the familiar interface of Word appears above the text.
In the very same text block you can have all 3 alignments and several tabs included. See my pict ...

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Susanne.

I see that the desried effect can be achieved - I'm just not understanding the interface. How do a define a tab other than left aligned? I've looked at all the places I would expect to be able to define such a thing, but I only see tabs treated genericallly.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I don't see an option for tabs to be anything other than left-aligned, Robert. I hope we're just missing it, as a decimal-aligned tab would be nice.

But, in the process of looking, I right-moused the tab-bar and found an option in the pop-up to display the attached dialog which allows precise positioning of things.

Karl

PS I typed some text in Word with right-tabs and decimal tabs, and pasted into AC 9. This seems to prove that there are only left tabs right now: when pasted as 'rich text', the tabs all turn into left-aligned tabs. When pasted as 'drawing elements' or 'figure', the data looks correct, but can't really be modified, so a repeat copy/paste would be required.

[Anonymous]

You see what I see, Karl, but its hard to ignore the image previously posted by Susanne. Too bad she didn't say how she did that.

Susanne??!!?? How about a little more?

[Anonymous]

Hi again Robert,

sorry - been kind of busy and didn't check the AC-talk in the afternoon ...

You see what I see, Karl, but its hard to ignore the image previously posted by Susanne. Too bad she didn't say how she did that.

Susanne??!!?? How about a little more?

All I did was to start typing (then the "Word like" task bar pops up), and while typing I just click on the tab bar (is it called that in English?) to add a tab or two.
You can have a specific tab setting for a couple of rows, then when hitting enter to start a new row you can just remove them with your cursor (click/press on the tab marker and drag it down below tab bar to get rid of it) and then add new tabs by clicking in the preferred position in the tab bar again. Tabs will now have new settings for your upcoming text rows. Makes sense?

Also in the midst of writing I just move my cursor up to the left/centre/ right alignment to select whatever alignment I prefer for the specific row I am typing on at the moment. The alignment will stay put till you change it again.

[Anonymous]

Susannne wrote:

Also in the midst of writing I just move my cursor up to the left/centre/ right alignment to select whatever alignment I prefer for the specific row I am typing on at the moment. The alignment will stay put till you change it again.

Still baffled, but thanks for trying. When you refer to the alignment selector, are you talking about the same buttons used to select paragraph alignment? That seems like a weird interface design, but more significantly, it doesn't produce the right result on my machine.

I've got setting, adjusting and deleting LEFT tabs *mastered*. I just still don't see the interface device for setting right or centered tabs (and of course decimal alignment is highly desireable). The tools my be there, but I sure am not getting the result yet.

[Anonymous]

RobertNichols wrote:
Still baffled, but thanks for trying. When you refer to the alignment selector, are you talking about the same buttons used to select paragraph alignment? That seems like a weird interface design, but more significantly, it doesn't produce the right result on my machine.

I've got setting, adjusting and deleting LEFT tabs *mastered*. I just still don't see the interface device for setting right or centered tabs (and of course decimal alignment is highly desireable). The tools my be there, but I sure am not getting the result yet.

As Karl pointed out:

I typed some text in Word with right-tabs and decimal tabs, and pasted into AC 9. This seems to prove that there are only left tabs right now: when pasted as 'rich text', the tabs all turn into left-aligned tabs.

The text box supports Left, Center and Right Alignment but only Left Tabs. Setting these up can be accomplished through a contextual menu (see attached). Cool that it also lets you choose special characters through the Character Map (Windows) or Character Palette (Mac).

[Laszlo Nagy]

RobertNichols wrote:
Susannne wrote:

Also in the midst of writing I just move my cursor up to the left/centre/ right alignment to select whatever alignment I prefer for the specific row I am typing on at the moment. The alignment will stay put till you change it again.

Still baffled, but thanks for trying. When you refer to the alignment selector, are you talking about the same buttons used to select paragraph alignment? That seems like a weird interface design, but more significantly, it doesn't produce the right result on my machine.

I've got setting, adjusting and deleting LEFT tabs *mastered*. I just still don't see the interface device for setting right or centered tabs (and of course decimal alignment is highly desireable). The tools my be there, but I sure am not getting the result yet.

If I understand correctly, you are baffled by the second row of Susanne's screen capture. I think the last character in her second row of text is a TAB character. The row is right-aligned, but does not actually seem to align to the right side. But that is because there is a TAB character at the end of the line.
I believe there is no right-aligned TABs or center-aligned TABs available in the text editor.
But is there such a thing available in Word? I don't remember seeing anything like this.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Another thing: most of the stuff regarding Text Editor is discussed in the New Features Guide document.