[ Re: forced line breaks, URLs, and justified text]

[Stuart Rogers]

Tina Ricks wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
>  
> 
> Would love some help with forced line breaks in justified text.
> 
>  
> 
> The text is justified (not my choice, it's what the client wants). This is a
> textbook, and there are a lot of references to URLs. I'm trying to follow
> the Chicago Manual of Style's guidelines on breaks in URLs, which
> specifically says do not allow hyphenation (which would make the URL no
> longer correct), break at slashes, before periods, and so on.
> 
>  
> 
> If I put in a line break (Ctrl-Enter), then Frame also discontinues the
> proportional spacing that makes the text justified, for that line only. I
> can add a slash to the allowed characters for line breaks (Format > Document
>> Text Options), but I can't add a period to the text options, or I get
> weird effects like a line break placing a lone right quote on the next line.
> Breaking at slashes doesn't always get a reasonable length line in a URL.
> 
>  
> 
>  I'm guessing this is the level of line and character control I would get
> with something like InDesign, but I couldn't stomach InDesign's lack of
> automatic cross references. Does anyone know how to do this in Frame-break
> lines exactly where I want them, but still maintain justified text?
> 
>  
> 
> Tina Ricks | kristina.ricks at verizon.net
> Editor
> Trial Guides, LLC
> 503-531-8485
> 
>  

Tina,

Have you tried just putting in a space? FM should then treat the
remaining part of the URL as a single word and wrap it to the following
line.  (Of course, it's a maintenance headache, but then so are the
Ctrl-Enters.)

Another approach that may or may not be acceptable to the author is to
use a service like tinyurl.com to reduce the length of URLs. For example,
http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com/products/transmitters/txu-30/
is reduced to
http://tinyurl.com/2s3493

That won't eliminate the line-break problem, but would reduce the number
of occurrences.  Or maybe with that approach you could move the URL
references into a bordered or shaded table cell set off in some way from
the body text; then you could have a very uniform appearance, because
the tinyurls are all the same length.

HTH,




-- 
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
Toronto, ON, Canada
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

srogers phoenix-geophysics com

"On the contrary."
-- Henrik Ibsen (last words, after a nurse said he "seemed a little
better.")